UNPRODUCTIVE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does unproductive mean? 

• UNPRODUCTIVE (adjective)
  The adjective UNPRODUCTIVE has 2 senses:

1. not producing or capable of producing

2. not producing desired results

  Familiarity information: UNPRODUCTIVE used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• UNPRODUCTIVE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Not producing or capable of producing

Context example:

elimination of high-cost or unproductive industries

Similar:

bootless; fruitless; futile; sleeveless; vain (unproductive of success)

dry (unproductive especially of the expected results)

nonproductive (not directly productive)

Also:

uncreative (not creative)

infertile; sterile; unfertile (incapable of reproducing)

unprofitable (producing little or no profit or gain)

Antonym:

productive (producing or capable of producing (especially abundantly))

Derivation:

unproductiveness (the quality of lacking the power to produce)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Not producing desired results

Context example:

the talks between labor and management were unproductive

Similar:

ineffective; ineffectual; uneffective (not producing an intended effect)

Derivation:

unproductiveness (the quality of lacking the power to produce)

 Context examples 

Generally red blood cells express slightly more alpha than beta-subunits to avoid forming unproductive beta-tetramers (HbH).

(Hemoglobin Chaperone Pathway, NCI Thesaurus/BIOCARTA)

But certainly I may claim my four years in this country have not been unproductive.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Any agent that promotes ejection of mucus or exudate from the lungs, bronchi and trachea by decreasing mucus viscosity or by increasing the secretion of mucus in a dry, unproductive cough.

(Expectorant, NCI Thesaurus)

When the universe notices that a situation is languishing and is unproductive, it will pull you out of it in the blink of an eye.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

The letter was not unproductive.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Though her engagement to Martin had been kept secret, their long intimacy had not been unproductive of gossip; and in the shop, glancing covertly at her lover and his following, had been several of her acquaintances.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I had, by cross-ways and by- paths, once more drawn near the tract of moorland; and now, only a few fields, almost as wild and unproductive as the heath from which they were scarcely reclaimed, lay between me and the dusky hill.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)