Link Centre Dictionary

proactive

proac·tive

UK/pɹəʊˈæk.tɪv/ US/pɹoʊˈæk.tɪv/ uncommon

adjective

1.

descriptive of any event or stimulus or process that has an effect on events or stimuli or processes that occur subsequently

  • “proactive inhibition”
  • “proactive interference”
Antonyms
2.

(of a policy or person or action) controlling a situation by causing something to happen rather than waiting to respond to it after it happens

Similar

Origin

From pro- + active; originally coined 1933 by Paul Whiteley and Gerald Blankfort in a psychology paper, used in technical sense. Used in a popular context and sense (courage, perseverance) in 1946 book Man’s Search for Meaning by neuropsychiatrist Viktor Emil Frankl, in the context of dealing with the Holocaust, as contrast with reactive.

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.