1 [onlybeforenoun] providing or intended to provide protection:
Workers should wear full protective clothing. * a protective layer of varnish * a protective barrier against the sun's rays
2 ~ (of / towards sb/sth) having or showing a wish to protect sb/sth:
She had been fiercely protective towards him as a teenager. * He was extremely protective of his role as advisor. * He put a protective arm around her shoulders. * Parents can easily become over-protective of their children (= want to protect them too much).
3 intended to give an advantage to your own country's industry:
protective legislation / tariffs
protectively adverb:
She clutched her bag protectively.
protectiveness noun [U]
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
Where does this definition of protective come from?
This entry for protective is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is protective a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, protective is tagged as adjective.
Does protective appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — protective appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
