Dictionaries › English

optative

Pronunciation: /ˈɒptətɪv/

The English word “optative” has 4 meanings listed here.

adjective

  1. Expressing a wish or a choice.
  2. Related or pertaining to the optative mood.

noun

  1. A mood of verbs found in some languages (e.g. Sanskrit, Old Prussian, Tamil, and Ancient Greek, but not English), used to express a wish.
  2. A verb or expression in the optative mood.

Etymology

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.

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “optative” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.