progressive
/prəˈɡrɛsɪv
/adjective
1Happening or developing gradually or in stages: a progressive decline in popularity...
- The testing occurs in two stages, the first stage consisting of a progressive exertion test to measure endurance and a vertical leap test to measure explosive leg power.
- The typical model of cancer palliative care might not suit people who have a gradual, progressive decline with unpredictable exacerbations.
- Aging is not a disease but a normal, gradual, and progressive decline that begins in the thirties when biological aging initiates cellular changes throughout the body.
Synonyms
continuing, continuous, increasing, growing, developing, ongoing, intensifying, accelerating, escalating;
gradual, step by step, cumulative
1.1(Of a medical condition) increasing in severity: progressive liver failure...
- In contrast, tumors and ototoxic medications produce slowly progressive unilateral or bilateral lesions.
- Furthermore, heart failure is a progressive condition: once symptoms appear, subsequent morbidity and mortality are high.
- An elderly black woman was readmitted to the hospital from a nursing home because of progressive weakness.
1.2(Of taxation or a tax) increasing as a proportion of the sum taxed as that sum increases: steeply progressive income taxes...
- Sometimes I think it is useless to debate the economic effects of decisions on minimum wage, inheritance taxes, progressive taxation, etc.
- This is a case in point to indicate that land-based property taxes are progressive.
- Everyone agrees that the fairest form of taxation is a progressive income tax: the more one earns, the more one pays.
2(Of a person or idea) favouring social reform: a relatively progressive Minister of Education...
- People have high expectations about Labor, the party of reform and progressive ideas.
- Although a right-wing neo-conservative, he's quite progressive on social policy and this gives him a certain desirability.
- The progressive beliefs and social justice we stand for, our core, must not be altered.
2.1Favouring change or innovation: the most progressive art school in Britain...
- His forward thinking, innovative and progressive methods of teaching, combined with his attention to detail of the core values of education, made him a wonderful asset to any school.
- Kitesurfing is the world's fastest growing watersport with new innovations and progressive manoeuvres being discovered regularly.
- It was a stable, hardworking and mutually profitable relationship in a changing, innovative and progressive period in the upgrading of the standard and facility of education in our schools.
Synonyms
modern, liberal, advanced, forward-looking, forward-thinking, go-ahead, enlightened, enterprising, innovative, up-and-coming, new, dynamic, avant-garde, modernistic, disruptive;
radical, left-wing, reforming, reformist, revolutionary, revisionist, progressivist
2.2Relating to or denoting a style of rock music popular especially in the 1970s and characterized by classical influences, the use of keyboard instruments, and lengthy compositions: classic progressive albums progressive bands like Black Sabbath and the Edgar Broughton Band...
- This Toronto trio has left their mark on the scene with a unique style of improvised progressive breakbeat house, a sound driven by artistic ingenuity but upheld by talented instrumentation.
- The band's style ranges from indie rock to progressive, with such influences as Radiohead, The Stone Roses, Led Zeppelin and The Frames.
- A whole lifestyle is suggested by this, home to tastefully decorated flats and progressive rock music.
3 Grammar Denoting an aspect or tense of a verb that expresses an action in progress, e.g. am writing, was writing. Also called continuous.One has to say, rather, I am writing a letter, with the progressive aspect....
- I mean, so what if I use stative verbs in the progressive form, or use Chinese language structure for my English in daily usage?
- The same can be said of his frequent use of progressive verbs (gerunds).
4(Of a card game or dance) involving a series of sections for which participants successively change place or relative position.I watched as the rest of the members of my class whirled around the Sport Hall in a progressive dance called the Oslo....
- At the progressive twenty-five card game in the Parish Hall on Tuesday, six people shared the top prize.
- It is a progressive 25 card game and it will be held in the Old School Community Centre and will commence at 9pm.
5 archaic Engaging in or constituting forward motion.
noun
1An advocate of social reform: people tend to present themselves either as progressives or traditionalists on this issue...
- The task of creating a democracy based on citizenship, diversity and solidarity is a far more difficult task, but one which social liberals and left-wing progressives in political and civil society need to take on.
- These men were the progressives and social reformers of their day.
- Yet there are still debates between traditionalists and progressives as to reforming the electoral process even further.
Synonyms
innovator, reformer, reformist, liberal, libertarian, progressivist, progressionist, leftist, left-winger
formal neoteric
2 Grammar A progressive tense or aspect: the present progressive...
- If the progressive can only be used with imperfectives, why is it not possible to use the progressive with quintessential examples of stative predicates, such as be tall and know French?
- It is still possible to mark habitual with a + Verb, just like the progressive.
- Again, this is clearly present progressive - it is what is happening right there and then he is referring to, not some habitual state of affairs.
3 (also progressive proof) (usually progressives) Printing Each of a set of proofs of colour work, showing all the colours separately and the cumulative effect of overprinting them.
Derivatives
progressiveness
- When I first moved to Montréal, I believed it to be a cosmopolitan city of many cultures, many languages, all playing and chain-smoking together in an oasis of European cool, a beacon of progressiveness, tolerance, and diversity.
- The advent of identity politics and counter-cultural resistance to art as commodity galvanized critics' identification of progressiveness in art with progressiveness in socio-political content.
- It is obvious that the administration of this University, which was noted for its progressiveness in the sixties when I attended it, has moved considerably to the right in order to appeal to its corporate donors.
Origin
Early 17th century: from French progressif, -ive or medieval Latin progressivus, from progress- 'gone forward', from the verb progredi (see progress).