- [usually before noun] involving doing something together or working together with others towards a shared aim
- Cooperative activity is essential to effective community work.
- The documentary was a cooperative effort by film-makers from five countries.
- This is a cooperative venture with the University of Copenhagen.
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- helpful by doing what you are asked to do
- Employees will generally be more cooperative if their views are taken seriously.
- [usually before noun] (business) owned and run by the people involved, with the profits shared by them
- a cooperative farm
- The cooperative movement started in Britain in the nineteenth century.
Word Originearly 17th cent.: from late Latin cooperativus, from Latin cooperat- ‘worked together’, from the verb cooperari, from co- ‘together’ + operari ‘to work’.
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