Progressive

//pɹəˈɡɹɛsɪv// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    One with liberal or progressive political beliefs.

    "The progressives want to legalise gay marriage."

  2. 2
    A person who actively favors or strives for progress towards improved conditions, as in society or government.
  3. 3
    Clipping of progressive dinner abbreviation, alt-of, clipping
  4. 4
    A member or supporter of a Progressive Party.
  5. 5
    a person who favors a political philosophy of progress and reform and the protection of civil liberties wordnet
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  1. 6
    A progressive verb; a verb used in the progressive tense and (in English) generally conjugated to end in -ing.
  2. 7
    a tense of verbs used in describing action that is on-going wordnet
Adjective
  1. 1
    Favouring or promoting progress; advanced.
  2. 2
    Belonging to or supporting a Progressive Party.
  3. 3
    Gradually advancing in extent; increasing.
  4. 4
    Of or pertaining to such a party, its policies, or its membership.
  5. 5
    Promoting or favoring progress towards improved conditions or new policies, ideas, or methods.

    "a progressive politician"

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  1. 6
    Liberal.

    "Conservative movements were far more progressive than the standard religious narrative of the decade alleges and the notoriously progressive ethos of the era was far more conservative than our collective memory has recognized."

  2. 7
    Of or relating to progressive education.

    "a progressive school"

  3. 8
    Increasing in rate as the taxable amount increases.
  4. 9
    Advancing in severity.

    "progressive paralysis"

  5. 10
    Continuous.
Adjective
  1. 1
    advancing in severity wordnet
  2. 2
    favoring or promoting reform (often by government action) wordnet
  3. 3
    (of a card game or a dance) involving a series of sections for which the participants successively change place or relative position wordnet
  4. 4
    favoring or promoting progress wordnet
  5. 5
    (of taxes) adjusted so that the rate increases as the amount of income increases wordnet
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  1. 6
    gradually advancing in extent wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
increasingliberalbroad mindeda la modeactiveadvanced

Example

More examples

"Especially over the last 20 years, the purported link between progressive welfare policies and economic failure in the Northern European countries seems to point to the difficulty of sustaining both full social welfare and international competitivity."

Etymology

From the Middle French progressif, from the Latin prōgressīvus, from prōgredior (perfect participial stem: prōgress-) + -īvus. Displaced native Old English forþgenġe. By surface analysis, progress + -ive.

Related phrases

future perfect progressivefuture progressivepast perfect progressivepast progressivepresent perfect progressivepresent progressiveprogressive aspectprogressive assimilationprogressive bluegrassprogressive creationismprogressive creationistprogressive dinner

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.