Meaning & use
underproductive
Last updated
Meanings
adjectivenot comparable
Producing less than is normal, expected, or wanted.
Grammar: Used before a noun or after a linking verb: an underproductive team; the team seems underproductive.
Patterns
- underproductive workers
- an underproductive economy
- be underproductive
After the merger, several departments became underproductive and missed their targets.
The report blamed poor training for an underproductive workforce.
Managers worried that long meetings were making everyone underproductive.
adjectivenot comparable
Not making good use of time, money, or effort; yielding little result.
Grammar: Describes things such as meetings, land, or investments rather than people: an underproductive use of funds.
Patterns
- an underproductive use of something
- underproductive land
- underproductive spending
They described the whole project as an underproductive use of public money.
Large areas of farmland lay underproductive because of the drought.
Cutting the underproductive spending freed up cash for research.
Common combinations
- underproductive workers
- The factory replaced its underproductive workers with automated machines.
- an underproductive economy
- An underproductive economy struggles to raise living standards.
- become underproductive
- Without clear goals, teams quickly become underproductive.
- highly underproductive
- The old mill was highly underproductive compared with modern plants.
- underproductive use of resources
- Critics called it an underproductive use of resources.
Synonyms and how they differ
- inefficient
- Focuses on wasting resources rather than on producing too little; a machine can be inefficient, but we usually say a person is underproductive.
- unproductive
- Very close in meaning, but it often means 'producing nothing at all', while underproductive means producing too little.
- low-yielding
- Used mainly for land, crops, or investments, not for people or teams.
Opposites
Word family
- productivity noun
- The rate at which work or goods are produced.
- productive adjective
- Producing a good amount or useful results.
- productively adverb
- In a way that produces good results.
- underproduction noun
- A situation in which too little of something is produced.
Commonly confused: underproductive or unproductive? underproductive or counterproductive?
underproductive vs unproductive
Unproductive means producing nothing useful; underproductive means producing some, but not enough. A broken machine is unproductive; a slow one is underproductive.
underproductive vs counterproductive
Counterproductive means having the opposite effect to what you wanted, which is a different idea from simply producing too little.
Practice
The manager complained that the team was ___ and rarely met its monthly targets.
Choose one answer.
'Underproductive' fits because the team does produce something, just not enough to hit its targets. 'Unproductive' would suggest they produce nothing at all, and 'counterproductive' means their work actually harms the goal.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “underproductive”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.