Etymology: < Middle French, French optatif (adjective) expressing desire (15th cent.), (noun) word expressing a wish (1374), optative mood (1548) and its etymon post-classical Latin optativus (adjective) expressing desire (4th cent. in grammatical context), (noun) optative mood (4th cent.; compare Hellenistic Greek ἡ εὐκτική) < classical Latin optāt-, past participial stem of optāreoptate v. + -īvus-ive suffix. Compare Italian ottativo (early 14th cent. as †optativo, noun and adjective), Spanish optativo (1490 as noun), both in grammatical sense.
A. adj.
1. Grammar. Having the function of expressing wish or desire. optative mood (also mode) n. [translating post-classical Latin optativus modus (4th cent.), in turn translating Hellenistic Greek εὐκτικὴ ἔγκλισις] the mood or form of the verb of which a prominent function is the expression of wish or desire, as in ancient Greek μὴ γένοιτο ‘may it not happen!’.
2.a. Relating to choice, or expressing desire; relating to the future and to the decisions it involves.
b. Roman Law. [Translating classical Latin optīvus.] = optive adj. Obs. rare.
"In an hour-long talk, rife with allusions to Leibniz, Hume, Kierkegaard, Wilde, Woolf, and Hardy, Miller offered a reading of 'Great Expectations' in which he argued that the novel is defined by 'the optative mode of self-understanding,' an experience of modern life, in which everything is what it is but could have been something else."
- Jill Lepore, "Dickens in Eden: Summer vacation with 'Great Expectations'", 29 August 2011 The New Yorker
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