optative
A mood of verbs found in some languages, used to express a wishA mood of verbs found in some languages (e.g. Sanskrit, Old Prussian, Tamil, and Ancient Greek, but not English), used to express a wish.
Meaning
2 sensesA mood of verbs found in some languages (e.g. Sanskrit, Old Prussian, Tamil, and Ancient Greek, but not English), used to express a wish.
a mood (as in Greek or Sanskrit) that expresses a wish or hope; expressed in English by modal verbs
A verb or expression in the optative mood.
Translations
7 languagesBy meaning 1
Origin
From Middle French optatif, from Late Latin optātīvus, a calque of Ancient Greek εὐκτική (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.
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Forms
plural: optativesSynonyms
1 synonyms- a mood (as in Greek or Sanskrit) that expresses a wish or hope; expressed in English by modal verbs:optative mood
Word family
2 related wordsSee also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.