Meaning of CONSTRUCTIVE
| Pronunciation: | | kun'struktiv
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 WordNet Dictionary |
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| | Definition: | |
- [adj] constructing or tending to construct or improve or promote development; "constructive criticism"; "a constructive attitude"; "a constructive philosophy"; "constructive permission"
- [adj] emphasizing what is laudable or hopeful or to the good; "constructive criticism"
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| | Synonyms: | | creative, formative, inferential, reconstructive, rehabilitative, shaping, structural |
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| | Antonyms: | | destructive | | |
| | See Also: | | positive | |
| Webster's 1913 Dictionary |
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| | Definition: | | \Con*struct"ive\, a. [Cf. F. constructif.]
1. Having ability to construct or form; employed in
construction; as, to exhibit constructive power.
The constructive fingers of Watts. --Emerson.
2. Derived from, or depending on, construction or
interpretation; not directly expressed, but inferred.
{Constructive crimes} (Law), acts having effects analogous to
those of some statutory or common law crimes; as,
constructive treason. Constructive crimes are no longer
recognized by the courts.
{Constructive notice}, notice imputed by construction of law.
{Constructive trust}, a trust which may be assumed to exist,
though no actual mention of it be made.
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| Computing Dictionary |
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| | Definition: | | A proof that something exists is "constructive" if it provides a method for actually constructing it. cantor's proof that the real numbers are uncountable can be thought of as a *non-constructive* proof that irrational numbers exist. (There are easy constructive proofs, too; but there are existence theorems with no known constructive proof). Obviously, all else being equal, constructive proofs are better than non-constructive proofs. A few mathematicians actually reject *all* non-constructive arguments as invalid; this means, for instance, that the law of the excluded middle (either P or not-P must hold, whatever P is) has to go; this makes proof by contradiction invalid. See intuitionistic logic for more information on this. Most mathematicians are perfectly happy with non-constructive proofs; however, the constructive approach is popular in theoretical computer science, both because computer scientists are less given to abstraction than mathematicians and because intuitionistic logic turns out to be the right theory for a theoretical treatment of the foundations of computer science. |
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| Thesaurus Terms |
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| | Related Terms: | | advantageous, aidful, beneficial, causative, conducive, construable, constructional, contributory, creative, deduced, definitional, demiurgic, derived, descriptive, diagnostic, exegetic, formative, furthersome, generative, good for, helpful, hermeneutic, implicit, inferential, inferred, interpretable, interpretational, interpretive, inventive, originative, positive, practicable, practical, productive, profitable, ratiocinative, remedial, renderable, salutary, semeiological, serviceable, symptomatological, therapeutic, tropological, useful, virtual |
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