Having ability to construct or form; employed in construction; as, to exhibit constructive power. [1913 Webster]
"The constructive fingers of Watts." [1913 Webster]
Derived from, or depending on, construction, inference, or interpretation; not directly expressed, but inferred. [1913 Webster]
helpful; promoting improvement; intended to help; as, constructive criticism; constructive suggestions. Contrasted with destructive. [PJC]

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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OXFORD DICTIONARY

constructive, adj.
1 a of construction; tending to construct. b tending to form a basis for ideas (constructive criticism).
2 helpful, positive (a constructive approach).
3 derived by inference; not expressed (constructive permission).
4 belonging to the structure of a building.

Derivative

constructively adv. constructiveness n.

Etymology

LL constructivus (as construct)

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THESAURUS

constructive

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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ROGET THESAURUS

constructive

Implication

N latency, implication, latency, inexpression, hidden meaning, occult meaning, occultness, mystery, cabala, anagoge, silence, concealment, more than meets the eye, more than meets the ear, Delphic oracle, le dessous des cartes, undercurrent, implication, logical implication, logical consequence, entailment, allusion, insinuation, innuendo, adumbration, something rotten in the state of Denmark, snake in the grass, secret, darkness, invisibility, imperceptibility, latent, lurking, secret, occult, implied, dormant, abeyant, unapparent, unknown, unseen, in the background, invisible, indiscoverable, dark, impenetrable, unspied, unsuspected, unsaid, unwritten, unpublished, unbreathed, untalked of, untold &c, unsung, unexposed, unproclaimed, undisclosed, unexpressed, not expressed, tacit, undeveloped, solved, unexplained, untraced, undiscovered, untracked, unexplored, uninvented, indirect, crooked, inferential, by inference, by implication, implicit, constructive, allusive, covert, muffled, steganographic, understood, underhand, underground, delitescent, concealed, by a side wind, sub silentio, in the background, behind the scenes, behind one's back, on the tip of one's tongue, secretly, between the lines, thereby hangs a tale, tacitum vivit sub pectore vulnus, where there's smoke, there's fire.

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