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Expressing a wish or a choice. quotations examples
an optative blessing
a. 1662 (date written), Thomas Fuller, The History of the Worthies of England, London: […] J[ohn] G[rismond,] W[illiam] L[eybourne] and W[illiam] G[odbid], published 1662
[…] then, in the optative retirement from hard science that building and opening a U.S.T.A-accredited and pedagogically experimental tennis academy apparently represented for him […]
1996, David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest […], Boston, Mass., New York, N.Y.: Little, Brown and Company, page 64
(grammar) Related or pertaining to the optative mood. examples
plural optatives
(grammar) A mood of verbs found in some languages (e.g. Sanskrit, Old Prussian, and Ancient Greek, but not English), used to express a wish. examples
(grammar) A verb or expression in the optative mood. examples