transformative

adjective

trans·​for·​ma·​tive tran(t)s-ˈfȯr-mə-tiv 

: causing or able to cause an important and lasting change in someone or something

a transformative experience

And she'll tell anyone who asks about her transformative weeks working for UNICEF in Congo and Cambodia.

—S. L. Price

It is increasingly hard to escape the conclusion that American politics has entered one of those rare transformative moments that shape the content of our public discourse and the direction of our governance for generations.

—Doug Ireland

Examples of transformative in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Activist hedge fund Elliott Management took a stake in the summer of 2025, buying into the dip that followed the announcement of the transformative Worldpay deal. —Justin Zacks, CNBC, 27 Mar. 2026

The experts believe laser technology is only now entering its most transformative phase. —Georgina Jedikovska, Interesting Engineering, 26 Mar. 2026

Some mathematicians look forward to offloading tedious verification work onto computers and see Lean as a potentially transformative new way of doing mathematics. —Leila Sloman, Quanta Magazine, 25 Mar. 2026

There are lots of pilots and hype—but only a small number of organizations, usually in tech, are seeing transformative gains. —Beatrice Nolan, Fortune, 25 Mar. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1668, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for transformative

• germinative
• corroborative
• determinative
• forgive
• ogive
• outlive
• relive
• give
• sieve
• resistive