adjective
- of, relating to, or characterized by intensity: intensive questioning.
- tending to intensify; intensifying.
- Medicine/Medical.
- increasing in intensity or degree.
- instituting treatment to the limit of safety.
- noting or pertaining to a system of agriculture involving the cultivation of limited areas, and relying on the maximum use of labor and expenditures to raise the crop yield per unit area (opposed to extensive).
- requiring or having a high concentration of a specified quality or element (used in combination): Coal mining is a labor-intensive industry.
- Grammar. indicating increased emphasis or force. Certainly is an intensive adverb. Myself in I did it myself is an intensive pronoun.
noun
- something that intensifies.
- Grammar. an intensive element or formation, as -self in himself, or Latin -tō in iac-tō, “I hurl” from iacō, “I throw.”
adjective
- involving the maximum use of land, time, or some other resourceintensive agriculture; an intensive course
- (usually in combination) using one factor of production proportionately more than others, as specifiedcapital-intensive; labour-intensive
- agriculture involving or farmed using large amounts of capital or labour to increase production from a particular areaCompare extensive (def. 3)
- denoting or relating to a grammatical intensifier
- denoting or belonging to a class of pronouns used to emphasize a noun or personal pronoun, such as himself in the sentence John himself did it. In English, intensive pronouns are identical in form with reflexive pronouns
- of or relating to intension
- physics of or relating to a local property, measurement, etc, that is independent of the extent of the systemCompare extensive (def. 4)
noun
- an intensifier or intensive pronoun or grammatical construction
adj.mid-15c., from French intensif (14c.), from Latin intens-, past participle stem of intendere (see intend). As a noun, 1813, from the adjective. Alternative intensitive is a malformation. Intensive care attested from 1958. Related: Intensively.