intensive
/ɪnˈtɛnsɪv/ adjective, noun
Forms intensives
- adjective Done with intensity or to a great degree; thorough.
- adjective Being made more intense.
- adjective (agriculture, economics) Of agriculture: increasing the productivity of an area of land.
- adjective (linguistics) Of a word: serving to give emphasis or force. “an intensive verb or preposition”
- adjective Involving much activity in a short period of time; highly concentrated. “I took a three-day intensive course in finance.”
- adjective Of or pertaining to innate or internal intensity or strength rather than outward extent.
- adjective Chiefly suffixed to a noun: using something with intensity; requiring a great amount of something; demanding. “This job is difficult because it is so labour-intensive.”
- adjective (medicine) Chiefly in intensive care: of care or treatment: involving a great degree of life support, monitoring, and other forms of effort in order to manage life-threatening conditions. “She was moved to the intensive-care unit of the hospital.”
- noun A thing which makes something more intense; specifically (linguistics), a form of a word with a more forceful or stronger sense than the root on which it is built.
- noun (education) A course taught intensively, involving much activity in a short period of time.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Etymology
The adjective is derived from Late Middle English intensive (“fervent, great, intense”), borrowed from Old French intensif, intensive (modern French intensif) + Middle English -ive (suffix meaning ‘of the nature of, relating to’ forming adjectives), equivalent to intense + -ive. Intensif is from Medieval Latin intēnsīvus, from Latin intēnsus (“attentive; eager, intent; intensive”) + -īvus (suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘doing; related to doing’); and intēnsus is the perfect passive participle of intendō (“to stretch out, strain”), from in- (prefix meaning ‘to, towards’) + tendō (“to extend, stretch, stretch out”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *tend- (“to extend, stretch”)). Doublet of intend.
The noun is derived from the adjective.
Webster’s 1913
- adjective Stretched; admitting of intension, or increase of degree; that can be intensified. Sir M. Hale.
- adjective Characterized by persistence; intent; unremitted; assiduous; intense. [Obs.] Sir H. Wotton.
- noun That which intensifies or emphasizes; an intensive verb or word.
Etymology [Cf. F. intensif. See Intense.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “intensive”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details