creative

Borrowed from Late Latin creativus, from Latin creō. Equivalent to create +‎ -ive. Displaced native Old English orþanclīċ.

• IPA^(key): /kɹiˈeɪtɪv/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪtɪv

creative (comparative more creative, superlative most creative)

1. Tending to create things, or having the ability to create; often, excellently, in a novel fashion, or any or all of these.

   a creative dramatist who avoids cliche

2. (of a created thing) Original, expressive and imaginative.

   a creative new solution to an old problem

3. (set theory) A type of set of natural numbers, related to mathematical logic.

   a creative set

4. Designed or executed to deceive or mislead.

   creative accounting

• inventive
• original

• imitative (tend to model an extant thing)
• annihilative (tend to make extinct)

creative (countable and uncountable, plural creatives)

1. (countable) A person directly involved in a creative marketing process.

   He is a visionary creative.

2. (uncountable) Artistic material used in advertising, e.g. photographs, drawings, or video.

   The design team has completed the creative for next month's multi-part ad campaign.

   I've included in my portfolio all the creative I've completed in my five year design career.

• “creative”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• creative in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
• "creative" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 82.
• “creative”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

• reactive

• IPA^(key): /kre.aˈti.ve/
• Rhymes: -ive
• Hyphenation: cre‧a‧tì‧ve

creative f pl

1. feminine plural of creativo

• createvi, recatevi