Distributive describes something that gets spread out or divided among multiple people or things. When a teacher uses a distributive method of handing out supplies, she makes sure everyone gets their fair share rather than giving everything to one student.

In mathematics, the distributive property is a rule that lets you multiply a number by a group of numbers being added together. Instead of solving what's in the parentheses first, you can distribute the multiplication to each number separately. For example, 3 × (4 + 5) gives the same answer as (3 × 4) + (3 × 5). You're distributing that 3 to both the 4 and the 5. This property works like breaking a big job into smaller pieces: if you need to give 3 cookies each to 4 friends and 5 cousins, you could count everyone first (9 people) and multiply, or you could figure out cookies for friends (12) and cookies for cousins (15) separately, then add them up (27 either way).