Adjective
co-operative (comparative more co-operative, superlative most co-operative)
- Alternative spelling of cooperative
1947 January and February, “Railway Literature”, in Railway Magazine, page 63:The "Liberation" Locomotive. Reprinted from The Railway Gazette, June 28, 1946. […] This detailed description of the 2-8-0 locomotives built by the Vulcan Foundry Limited for service in the war-ravaged countries of Europe is a record of one of the most remarkable examples of determined co-operative effort in the field of locomotive construction.
1948, Walter N. Lacy, A Hundred Years of China Methodism, Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, →OCLC, page 159:At Futsing, in 1915, a school for boys was established which, because of its co-operative basis, was unique.
1960 December, “The riding of B.R. coaches”, in Trains Illustrated, page 706:The solution to coach riding defects, at least, seems to require much more co-operative practical experiment by all engineering departments to achieve better sympathy between the vehicle body, its undercarriage and the track on which it rides.
Noun
co-operative (plural co-operatives)
- Alternative spelling of cooperative
1965 [1959], C. K. Yang, “Organizational Problems of the Agricultural Producers' Co-operatives”, in A Chinese Village in Early Communist Transition, The M.I.T. Press, →OCLC, page 242:In Tz’u-hsi county of Chekiang Province 19.9 per cent of 640 co-operatives were reported to have committed serious waste.
Further reading
- Chambers 21st Century Dictionary retrieved on November 7, 2006