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I am describing a process as being antithetical to collaboration.

To clarify, I'm referring to its quality as being "not naturally collaborative", not "actively anti-collaboration"

Is "uncollaborative" a word? Is there a word that isn't a variation of "collaboration" that gets the job done?

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  • I think we need a bit more precision in the question. Are you looking for something that inherently cannot be achieved in a collaborative fashion? Or a process that's deliberately performed to stymie collaboration? Perhaps an example of something with this property, and a sentence (with a blank for the unknown word).
    – slim
    Commented Jan 3, 2012 at 19:56
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    I personally would not understand a "collaborative process" to mean a process amenable to collaboration. I do not think there is a single word that means even that, let alone a single word that means not conducive to collaboration. A collaborative process is one which does or did involve multiple contributors as a matter of ongoing or historical fact. It doesn't imply anything at all to me about whether the same could have been accomplished by a single individual.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Jan 3, 2012 at 22:06

4 Answers 4

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Insular "of the nature of an island" and by extension anything which is naturally isolate (q.v.)

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Independent strikes me as a good candidate.

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Competitive springs to mind, if you really mean antithetical to collaboration.

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    I edited the question to be clearer. This is a fine word but not the direction I was going in.
    – Samuel Hulick
    Commented Jan 3, 2012 at 21:06
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    It's not the only way to impede collaboration, but it's a time-honored alternative and it usually works pretty well in that respect, anyway. Though there is a price; as Bateson put it, "Adversarial systems are notoriously subject to irrelevant determinism."
    – John Lawler
    Commented Jan 3, 2012 at 21:10
  • @Samuel: really? this isn't what you're looking for? this is the right answer for the title. You need to clarify further (but don't expect your desired exact concept to have a word for it). What other 'direction' is there? 'Not conducive to collaboration', 'impeding collaboration'? This is not the same as opposite or antithetical to X. You should edit the title too then.
    – Mitch
    Commented Jan 3, 2012 at 21:39
  • @Mitch Fine. Post title updated.
    – Samuel Hulick
    Commented Jan 3, 2012 at 21:46
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non-collaborative is the opposite of collaborative

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  • glassdoor.com/Reviews/… - one example of the same
    – Raghuraman R
    Commented Mar 3, 2015 at 6:02
  • This doesn't answer the question.
    – curiousdannii
    Commented Mar 3, 2015 at 7:47
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    I think it's potentially responsive, since the OP asks if "uncollaborative is a word" while also asking for something not a variant of collaboration.
    – Jim Reynolds
    Commented Mar 3, 2015 at 9:49

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