deeply absorbed in thought; "as distant and bemused as a professor listening to the prattling of his freshman class"; "lost in thought"; "a preoccupied frown"
constructing or tending to construct or improve or promote development; "constructive criticism"; "a constructive attitude"; "a constructive philosophy"; "constructive permission"
emphasizing what is laudable or hopeful or to the good; "constructive criticism"
the act of starting something; "he was responsible for the beginning of negotiations"
the first part or section of something; "`It was a dark and stormy night' is a hackneyed beginning for a story"
the event consisting of the start of something; "the beginning of the war"
the place where something begins, where it springs into being; "the Italian beginning of the Renaissance"; "Jupiter was the origin of the radiation"; "Pittsburgh is the source of the Ohio River"; "communism's Russian root"
the time at which something is supposed to begin; "they got an early start"; "she knew from the get-go that he was the man for her"
(used of persons or artifacts) marked by independence and creativity in thought or action; "an imaginative use of material"; "the invention of the knitting frame by another ingenious English clergyman"- Lewis Mumford; "an ingenious device"; "had an inventive turn of mind"; "inventive ceramics"
(chemistry) a process in which one substance permeates another; a fluid permeates or is dissolved by a liquid or solid
(physics) the process in which incident radiated energy is retained without reflection or transmission on passing through a medium; "the absorption of photons by atoms or molecules"
producing new life or offspring; "the reproductive potential of a species is its relative capacity to reproduce itself under optimal conditions"; "the reproductive or generative organs"
having the ability to produce or originate; "generative power"; "generative forces"