AGGRESSIVE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Aggressive

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/əgrˈɛsɪv/ Listen

adjective

Aggressive adj.

1.

Tending or disposed to aggress; having or showing determination and energetic pursuit of one's own ends at the expense of others or mindless of others' needs or desires; characterized by aggression; making assaults; unjustly attacking; as, an aggressive policy, war, person, nation; an aggressive businessman; an aggressive basketball player; he was aggressive and imperious in his convictions; aggressive drivers. Opposite of unaggressive. "No aggressive movement was made."

2.

Marked by self-confident ambition, vigorous competitiveness, energy and initiative; as, an aggressive young executive.

Synonyms: enterprising, pushful, pushing, pushy

3.

(Med., Biol.) Tending to grow or spread quickly; as, an aggressive tumor. (Narrower terms: invasive (vs. noninvasive))

Synonyms: fast-growing(prenominal)

4.

Tending to initiate unprovoked attacks; initiating unprovoked military action; eager to fight; as, aggressive acts against another country.

Synonyms: belligerent. Note: Narrower related terms: bellicose, combative, pugnacious, scrappy, truculent; hard-hitting, high-pressure; hostile (used of attempts to buy or take control of a business: "hostile takeover"; "hostile tender offer"); predatory, rapacious, raptorial, ravening, vulturine, vulturous. See also: assertive, hostile, offensive.

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Etymology of 'Aggressive'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Aggressive" Quotes from Famous Books

... now and spiritually a woman, if she still retained the slight, sword-like figure of her girlhood days. Her face was graver than of old and more quiet. The touch of almost aggressive resolution and defiance it once possessed had shaded off into something stiller and more impressive. There was less show of strength and more evidence of it. Her roots were deeper, and she was therefore less moved by passing winds. Something of her mother's calm had invaded ...

— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant

... who are tainted with snobbishness and shoddyism, but how frequently we see it in men, generally those who have very little brain and often in those whom the world calls self-made-men. Now there is nothing in the world so aggressive as the same self-made-man. The air with which he moves along, as though upon him depended the revolution of the world on its axis, and the safety and welfare of its inhabitants. He never allows himself, nor others, to forget the fact that he is self-made. The laborer, who, by dint of hard ...

— Bohemian Society • Lydia Leavitt

... again I wish to mention That this erudition sham Is but classical pretension, The result of steady "cram." Yet my classic lore aggressive (If you'll pardon the possessive) Is exceedingly impressive ...

— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... an attractive young fellow, but, if you'll forgive my saying so, Mr. Moreton, I don't think he's any good. He's weak, he's idle, he entirely lacks that aggressive will that—whether we have your revolution or not—is the only bulwark a woman has in this world. Why, Mr. Moreton, you are evidently a very much more advanced and dangerous radical than your brother, but I should not have half the objection to you that I have to him. There is only one ...

— The Beauty and the Bolshevist • Alice Duer Miller

... tug a goat by a rope tied round its neck. The goat has horns, and I expect every moment to see the baby gored. But it never seems to enter into the goat's head to do anything so aggressive. It tugs, however, and the baby tugs, till a grown-up comes to the baby's assistance, and all three ...

— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael

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