optative

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   grammar: expressing a wish, hope, or possibility through a verb form or construction

   Ancient Greek uses an optative form in several kinds of wishes and potential statements.

2. 2
   noun

   a grammatical mood or a verb form that expresses a wish or hope

   The translator rendered the optative with the English phrase may it be so.

3. 3
   adj

   formal: desired or wished for rather than asserted as actual

   The proposal remained optative because no mechanism existed to carry it out.

From Late Latin optativus ("expressing a wish"), from optatus, the past participle of optare ("to choose, wish"). Grammarians used it to translate Ancient Greek euktike, the name of the wishing mood.

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