constructive

comparative more constructive · superlative most constructive

1. Relating to or causing construction.

   Antonyms: destructive

2. Carefully considered and meant to be helpful.

   Sections of the media are culpable of only describing two types of African – powerful and corrupt, or destitute and starving. But Comic Relief’s biennial guilt trip perpetuates these stereotypes and fails to move the debate on in a constructive way.

   2017 March 24, David Lammy, “Africa deserves better from Comic Relief”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 02 Mar 2019

   Synonyms: productive, helpful, useful

3. Serving a useful purpose.

   At the same time, it was Marx's view that under communism men's individual possibilities would display themselves only in socially constructive ways, so that conflicts among individuals would lose all raison d'être.

   1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume I: The Founders, Oxford: Clarendon Press, translation of Główne nurty marksizmu: powstanie (in Polish), →ISBN, →OCLC, page 162

4. lawDeemed after the fact to exist or to have occurred, despite the formal process not having been followed; often when there was no intention to do so at the time.

   constructive trust

   2 more examples

   constructive dismissal

   constructive notice

5. Not direct or expressed, but inferred.

   1 more example

   A President's power begins slipping away the moment it is known that he is going to leave: I had seen that in 1952, in 1960, in 1968. On the eve of my resignation I knew that my role was already a symbolic one, and that Gerald Ford's was now the constructive one. My telephone calls and meetings and decisions were now parts of a prescribed ritual aimed at making peace with the past; his calls, his meetings, and his decisions were already the ones that would shape America's future.

   1978, Richard Nixon, “The Presidency 1973–1974”, in RN: the Memoirs of Richard Nixon, Grosset & Dunlap, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 1077