|
|
Definition of Optative
1. Adjective. Indicating an option or wish.
2. Noun. A mood (as in Greek or Sanskrit) that expresses a wish or hope; expressed in English by modal verbs.
Category relationships: Sanskrit, Sanskritic Language
Geographical relationships: Ellas, Greece, Hellenic Republic
Generic synonyms: Modality, Mode, Mood
3. Adjective. Relating to a mood of verbs in some languages. "Optative verb endings"
Definition of Optative
1. a. Expressing desire or wish.
2. n. Something to be desired.
Definition of Optative
1. Adjective. expressing a wish or a choice. ¹
2. Adjective. related or pertaining to the optative mood. ¹
3. Noun. (grammar) a mood of verbs found in some languages (e.g. Old Prussian, Ancient Greek), used to express a wish. English has no inflexional optative mood, but it has modal verbs like "might" and "may" that express possibility. ¹
4. Noun. a verb or expression in the optative mood. ¹
¹ Source: wiktionary.com
Definition of Optative
1. a mood of verbs that expresses a wish or desire [n -S]
Lexicographical Neighbors of Optative
Literary usage of Optative
Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:
1. A Grammar of the Homeric Dialect by David Binning Monro (1891)
"The fact that où is the negative Partiele in all these instances shows that the
optative is grammatically more akin to a Future than to an expression of ..."
2. Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb by William Watson Goodwin (1893)
"(a) After past tenses the indicative and optative are in equally good use ; the
optative being used when the writer incorporates the quotation entirely into ..."
3. A Greek Grammar for Colleges by Herbert Weir Smyth (1920)
"optative of Wish. — In independent sentences the optative without âv is used to
... The optative introduced by ft yap, etc. is sometimes explained as a ..."
4. Native Writings in Massachusett by Ives Goddard, Kathleen Joan Bragdon (1988)
"optative Preterite Eliot gives paradigms of a preterite of the optative, which
is equivalent formally to the optative with the addition of the |-us| of the ..."
5. A Greek Grammar for Schools and Colleges by Herbert Weir Smyth (1916)
"optative is never used except in indirect discourse to represent a future ...
(a) In the condition, tl KSV (« âv) with the optative with about the same ..."
6. Allen and Greenough's New Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges: Founded on by Joseph Henry Allen, James Bradstreet Greenough (1916)
"The optative Subjunctive is often preceded by the particle utinam; so regularly
in the ... In poetry and old Latin uti or ut often introduces the optative ..."
7. Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb by William Watson Goodwin (1890)
"515 E. These are all the cases of this use of the optative with Trpi'v cited by
Sturm. In many cases where the optative could have been used, the infinitive ..."
8. A Sanskrit Grammar: Including Both the Classical Language, and the Older by William Dwight Whitney (1913)
"But the expression of desire, on the one hand, pauses naturally over into that
of request or entreaty, so that the optative becomes a softened imperative; ..."
Other Resources:
