The Collaborative International Dictionary
Progressive \Pro*gress"ive\, a. [Cf. F. progressif.]
Moving forward; proceeding onward; advancing; evincing progress; increasing; as, progressive motion or course; -- opposed to retrograde.
Improving; as, art is in a progressive state.
(U. S. History) Of or pertaining to the Progressive party.
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Favoring improvement, change, progress, or reform, especially in a political context; -- used of people. Contrasted with conservative.
Note: The term progressive is sometimes used to describe the views of a politician, where liberal might have been used at one time, in communities where the term liberal has come to connote extreme views.
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Disposed toward adopting new methods in government or education, holding tolerant and liberal ideas, and generally favoring improvement in civic life; -- of towns and communities.
Progressive euchre or Progressive whist, a way of playing at card parties, by which after every game, the losers at the first table go to the last table, and the winners at all the tables, except the first, move up to the next table.
Progressive muscular atrophy (Med.), a nervous disorder characterized by continuous atrophy of the muscles. [1913 Webster] -- Pro*gress"ive*ly, adv. -- Pro*gress"ive*ness, n.
Wiktionary
adv. 1 In a progressive manner. 2 As part of a progression.
WordNet
adv. advancing in amount or intensity; "she became increasingly depressed" [syn: increasingly, more and more]
Usage examples of "progressively".
Till the privileges of Romans had been progressively extended to all the inhabitants of the empire, an important distinction was preserved between Italy and the provinces.
Like every compound it must consist of things progressively differing in form and safeguarded in that form.
By so doing they will be much better able to help the rest of the world than by progressively weakening themselves through failure to regulate immigration.
It is characterized by having more individuals of a mediocre degree and progressively fewer above and below this mode.
Then progressively the lights were turned down again and that visual clamour died away.
But in successive states of nonordinary reality the specific forms, the details making up the form, and the patterns in which the component elements were combined became progressively unfamiliar, until I could not put them on a par with, nor could they even evoke, in some instances, anything I had ever perceived in ordinary reality.
Every night, the brilliant sun sank somewhere ahead of their bows, and spent progressively less time below the horizon before rising somewhere to the north of northeast.
Memorial sculptures, virtually unknown before the late eleventh century, now become progressively more common.
Though none of these maps survives, some based on them, produced by Diogo Ribeiro and now in the Vatican, show that the proportions of the world were being progressively better understood.
But Mercator overcame the effect of the curvature of the earth by increasing the length of the degree of latitude on his map progressively towards the poles in the same proportion that, on a curved surface, the meridians converge.
The state thus became progressively more authoritarian as it took on a greater role in regulating economic and social issues.
Finding on inquiry that Herr von Tost was a wealthy man, very fond of music, Spohr fixed the price at thirty ducats for a quartette, thirty-five for a quintette, and so on, progressively higher for the different kinds of composition.
Each verse grew progressively more absurd and off-color Transvestism and other variations were broadly hinted at.
He let his gaze slowly travel nearer, noting how the gardens became progressively more structured the closer they got to the house.
Feeling progressively more and more nervous, Wendy and Marissa entered and hurried up two flights, passing the ground floor where the janitorial staff had been working on the marble.