op·ta·tive

(ŏp′tə-tĭv)

adj.

1. Expressing a wish or choice.

2. Grammar

a. Of, relating to, or being a mood of verbs in some languages, such as Greek, used to express a wish.

b. Designating a statement using a verb in the subjunctive mood to indicate a wish or desire, as in Had I the means, I would do it.

n. Grammar

1. The optative mood.

2. A verb or an expression in the optative mood.

[Middle English optatif, from Old French, from Late Latin optātīvus, from Latin optātus, past participle of optāre, to wish.]

op′ta·tive·ly adv.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

optative

(ˈɒptətɪv)

adj

1. indicating or expressing choice, preference, or wish

2. (Grammar) grammar denoting a mood of verbs in Greek, Sanskrit, etc, expressing a wish

(Grammar) grammar

a. the optative mood

b. a verb in this mood

[C16: via French optatif, from Late Latin optātīvus, from Latin optāre to desire]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

op•ta•tive

(ˈɒp tə tɪv)

adj.

1. of or pertaining to a verb mood, as in Greek, used to express a wish or desire.

2. the optative mood.

3. a verb in the optative mood.

[1520–30; < Late Latin optātīvus= Latin optāt(us) (past participle of optāre; see opt, -ate¹) + -īvus -ive]

op′ta•tive•ly, adv.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun	1.	optative - a mood (as in Greek or Sanskrit) that expresses a wish or hope; expressed in English by modal verbs optative mood Sanskrit, Sanskritic language - (Hinduism) an ancient language of India (the language of the Vedas and of Hinduism); an official language of India although it is now used only for religious purposes Ellas, Greece, Hellenic Republic - a republic in southeastern Europe on the southern part of the Balkan peninsula; known for grapes and olives and olive oil modality, mood, mode - verb inflections that express how the action or state is conceived by the speaker
Adj.	1.	optative - indicating an option or wish
	2.	optative - relating to a mood of verbs in some languages; "optative verb endings" grammar - the branch of linguistics that deals with syntax and morphology (and sometimes also deals with semantics)

Translations

ottativo

optativo

optative

[ˈɒptətɪv]

A. ADJ → optativo

B. N → optativo m

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

optative

n → Optativ m, → Wunschform f

adj → optativ

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

optative

[ˈɒptətɪv]

1. adj → ottativo/a

2. n → ottativo

Mentioned in

References in periodicals archive

In 2017, chemical product price started to improve, which have a optative impact on third-party chemical distribution market.

Third-Party Chemical Distribution Market 2019: Global Analysis, Share, Trends, Application Analysis and Forecast To 2024

The Pahlavi Optative and Some Feminine Forms in -iy.

Iranisches Personennamenbuch, vol. 2: Mitteliranische Namen, fasc. 1: Iranische Personennamen in manichaischer Uberlieferung

For Eng, "Suspended between departure and arrival, Asian Americans remain permanently disenfranchised from home, relegated to a nostalgic sense of its loss or to an optative sense of its unattainability" (Eng, "Out Here" 31).

Subverting Transnormativity: Rage and Resilience in Kim Fu's For Today I Am a Boy

Even in this optative mode, Plat's analogy operates according to the dynamics of practical address.

The Poetics of Practical Address

Verbs are divided into transitive and intransitive, they inflect for tense (Present, Past, analytical Future), mood (Indicative and Oblique--Imperative, Evidential, Adhortative, Optative, Conjunctive, Conditional), voice (Active with two conjugations: subjective and objective, and Passive), aspect (General and Stative), they have three numbers as well as subject agreement and object agreement.

POSSESSIVE CONSTRUCTIONS IN THE OBDORSK DIALECT OF THE KHANTY LANGUAGE

sway between assertive, hypothetical, and optative stances, finally

Reticence and Phobos in Aeschylus's Agamemnon

Among the topics are Gothic evidence for Greek historical phonology, on the oblique optative in Herodotus' completive sentences: an evidentiality mark in Ancient Greek, focus on performance: some focusing expressions in anagnorisis scenes from Attic tragedy, verbal alternations in Ancient Greek as an interface between lexicon and syntax, and Homeric and Hittite phraseology compared: introducing the soliloquy in the Homeric and Near Eastern epic.

Ancient Greek Linguistics: New Approaches, Insights, Perspectives

Most notably, concerning the notion of walking on a "razor's edge"; Milton's "flexibly complex" re-inscription of the choice of Achilles; his appropriation of Homeric theodicy; and his acute awareness of the "theological significance of the temporal distinctions made possible by Homeric Greek, particularly those tenses and modes (including the imperfect, aorist, optative, future less vivid, and middle passive voice) that denote present or past conditionality--what may happen or what might have happened rather than what will happen or what has happened" (357-8).

Jessica Wolfe. Homer and the Question of Strife from Erasmus to Hobbes

His language and life-mood are indicative and imperative, not subjunctive or optative; (28) his real and definite existence is a powerful retort to A's vaporous and hypothetical one.

The explosive maieutics of Kierkegaard's Either/Or