Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- In an optative manner; by desire; by the expression of a wish.
- By means of the optative mode; in the optative mode.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adverb rare In an optative manner; with the expression of desire.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adverb In an
optative way.
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
optative + -ly
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Examples
-
From Rosenstock-Huessy's perspective, Heidegger's deployment of Being, as a gesture of defiance against the technicity into which the world has fallen, is precisely the same kind of optatively-governed gesture which characterizes the philosopher's freedom (an aesthetic/moral one).
Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy Cristaudo, Wayne 2008
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to go to Jericho, Bath, Hong Kong, Putney, etc.: used imperatively or optatively to imply that one desires to see no more of a person, or does not care what becomes of him.
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