Word Study
destructive
OXFORD DICTIONARY
destructive, adj.
1 (often foll. by to, of) destroying or tending to destroy (destructive of her peace of mind; is destructive to organisms; a destructive child).
2 negative in attitude or criticism; refuting without suggesting, helping, amending, etc. (opp. CONSTRUCTIVE) (has only destructive criticism to offer).
1 (often foll. by to, of) destroying or tending to destroy (destructive of her peace of mind; is destructive to organisms; a destructive child).
2 negative in attitude or criticism; refuting without suggesting, helping, amending, etc. (opp. CONSTRUCTIVE) (has only destructive criticism to offer).
Derivative
destructively adv. destructiveness n.
Etymology
ME f. OF destructif -ive f. LL destructivus (as DESTROY)
THESAURUS
destructive
adverse, annihilative, antithetical, bad, baleful, baneful, black, brutal, calamitous, cataclysmal, cataclysmic, catastrophic, catching, communicable, condemnatory, conflicting, consuming, consumptive, contagious, contradictory, contrary, critical, damaging, dangerous, deadly, death-bringing, deathful, deathly, deleterious, demolishing, demolitionary, depredatory, derogatory, desolating, destroying, detrimental, devastating, dire, disapproving, disastrous, disparaging, doomful, envenomed, fatal, fateful, fell, feral, fratricidal, grievous, harmful, hurtful, infectious, infective, injurious, internecine, killing, lethal, malign, malignant, mephitic, miasmal, miasmatic, miasmic, mortal, negative, nihilist, nihilistic, noxious, opposed, opposing, pernicious, pestiferous, pestilential, poisonous, ravaging, ruining, ruinous, savage, self-destructive, shattering, subversionary, subversive, suicidal, toxic, toxicant, toxiferous, tragic, unfavorable, unwholesome, vandalic, vandalish, vandalistic, venenate, veneniferous, venenous, venomous, virulent, wasteful, wasting, withering, wreckfulROGET THESAURUS
destructive
Badness
N badness, hurtfulness, virulence, evil doer, bane, plague spot, evil star, ill wind, hoodoo, Jonah, snake in the grass, skeleton in the closet, amari aliquid, thorn in the side, malignity, malevolence, tender mercies, ill-treatment, annoyance, molestation, abuse, oppression, persecution, outrage, misusage, injury, knockout drops, badness, peccancy, abomination, painfulness, pestilence, guilt, depravity, hurtful, harmful, scathful, baneful, baleful, injurious, deleterious, detrimental, noxious, pernicious, mischievous, full of mischief, mischief-making, malefic, malignant, nocuous, noisome, prejudicial, disserviceable, disadvantageous, wide-wasting, unlucky, sinister, obnoxious, untoward, disastrous, oppressive, burdensome, onerous, malign, corrupting &c (corrupt), virulent, venomous, envenomed, corrosive, poisonous, deadly, destructive, inauspicious, bad, ill, arrant, as bad as bad can be, dreadful, horrid, horrible, dire, rank, peccant, foul, fulsome, rotten, rotten at the core, vile, base, villainous, mean, injured, deteriorated, unsatisfactory, exceptionable indifferent, below par, illcontrived, ill-conditioned, wretched, sad, grievous, deplorable, lamentable, pitiful, pitiable, woeful, evil, wrong, depraved, shocking, reprehensible, hateful, hateful as a toad, abominable, detestable, execrable, cursed, accursed, confounded, damned, damnable, infernal, diabolic, unadvisable, unprofitable, incompetent, irremediable, badly, wrong, ill, to one's cost, where the shoe pinches, bad is the best: the worst come to the worst, herba mala presto cresco, wrongs unredressed or insults unavenged.Destruction
N destruction, waste, dissolution, breaking up, diruption, disruption, consumption, disorganization, fall, downfall, devastation, ruin, perdition, crash, eboulement, smash, havoc, delabrement, debacle, break down, break up, fall apart, prostration, desolation, bouleversement, wreck, wrack, shipwreck, cataclysm, washout, extinction, annihilation, destruction of life, knock-down blow, doom, crack of doom, destroying, demolition, demolishment, overthrow, subversion, suppression, abolition, biblioclasm, sacrifice, ravage, razzia, inactivation, incendiarism, revolution, extirpation, beginning of the end, commencement de la fin, road to ruin, dilapidation, sabotage, destroyed, perishing, trembling to its fall, nodding to its fall, tottering to its fall, in course of destruction, extinct, all-destroying, all-devouring, all-engulfing, destructive, subversive, ruinous, devastating, incendiary, deletory, destroying, suicidal, deadly, with crushing effect, with a sledge hammer, delenda est Carthago, dum Roma deliberat Saguntum perit, ecrasez l'infame.For further exploring for "destructive" in Webster Dictionary Online