Addictive means hard to stop once you have started. An addictive drug, addictive by design, dangerously addictive.
The clinical sense is precise: a substance that produces dependence and withdrawal. The loose sense — an addictive series, an addictive game — has become so common that the strong sense is weakened, which suits the companies designing for it.
1adjectiveaddictiveHard to stop once you have started.
“This new puzzle game is so addictive that I played it until two in the morning.”
addictive is a quality.
From addict plus -ive. Latin addicere meant to award or make over, as a debtor was made over to a creditor.
First attested 1914. Addiction in modern sense is first attested 1906, in reference to opium. There is an isolated instance from 1779, with reference to tobacco.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA