optative
(Redirected from optative mood)
EnglishEdit
Alternative formsEdit
- (abbreviation, grammar): opt.
EtymologyEdit
From Middle French optatif, from Late Latin optātīvus, a calque of Ancient Greek εὐκτική (euktikḗ, “related to wishing”), from Latin optātus, past participle of optāre.
PronunciationEdit
AdjectiveEdit
optative (not comparable)
- Expressing a wish or a choice.
- a. 1662 (date written), Thomas Fuller, The History of the Worthies of England, London: […] J[ohn] G[rismond,] W[illiam] L[eybourne] and W[illiam] G[odbid], published 1662, →OCLC:
- an optative blessing
- 1996, David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest: A Novel, New York, N.Y.; Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 64:
- […] then, in the optative retirement from hard science that building and opening a U.S.T.A-accredited and pedagogically experimental tennis academy apparently represented for him […]
- (grammar) Related or pertaining to the optative mood.
TranslationsEdit
expressing a wish
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pertaining to the optative mood
NounEdit
optative (plural optatives)
- (grammar) A mood of verbs found in some languages (e.g. Sanskrit, Old Prussian, and Ancient Greek, but not English), used to express a wish.
- (grammar) A verb or expression in the optative mood.
Derived termsEdit
TranslationsEdit
optative
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See alsoEdit
FrenchEdit
PronunciationEdit
Audio (file)
AdjectiveEdit
optative
LatinEdit
AdjectiveEdit
optātīve