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Glite Dictionary
🌍 Wide or large 🐄 Large-scale farming
extensive

extensive

4 6.1
Farming on large areas that uses little work or money
  • adjective
  • /ɪkˈstɛnsɪv/
  • Specialized
translation icon : extensivo
  • The CAP of the European Union (EU) favors extensive productive systems and sustains them with financial support.
  • extensive agriculture
  • extensive cultivation
  • extensive livestock grazing

Examples

  • Conversion of natural vegetation to farmland and ranchland has been extensive in this region, fragmenting habitat along migratory corridors.

    Academic text (1999)

  • I remember writing about the extensive agricultural station.

    The Black Hole (1979)

  • The network of exchange in planting material is extensive where settlement densities are low.

    Academic text (2004)

  • The water for these extensive agricultural projects comes from groundwater reserves.

    Academic text (2006)

  • There has been extensive clearance of the natural vegetation for pasture and arable land.

    Academic text (1990)

  • The farmer adopted extensive methods to cultivate crops across his large fields with minimal labor.

  • Many regions are shifting towards extensive farming that relies less on inputs and allows for large-scale production.

  • By implementing extensive agricultural practices, the community increased crop yields without significant financial investment.

Antonyms

intensive
156 4.3

Needing a lot of work, care, or money at the same time

concentrated
4.1

Giving a lot of attention and effort to one task

How Extensive

extensive
  • Specialized
4 6.1
intensive
156 4.3

Surface Forms

extensive positive
extensively positive

Morphology

extensive = extent (transparent) = extent + ive

The agricultural meaning ('over a large area with minimal input') is a specialized application of 'covering a large extent', so the derivation from 'extent' + '-ive' is straightforward.

Etymology

Extensive for farming comes from the same idea: a Latin word meaning 'to stretch out', like extend and extent. So extensive agriculture means animals or crops are 'stretched out' over a lot of land with little work on each small part, unlike intensive farming which packs many resources into a small area.