vocative

adj
/ˈvɑkətɪv/US/ˈvɒkətɪv/UK/ˈvakətɪv/

Etymology

From Late Middle English [Term?], borrowed from Middle French vocatif, from Latin vocātīvus (“for calling”); a calque of Ancient Greek κλητῐκή (klētĭkḗ, “for calling; vocative case”) – from vocāre (“to call”), from Proto-Indo-European *wokʷ-, o-grade of *wekʷ- (“give vocal utterance, speak”). See Latin vōx.

  1. derived from vocātīvus
  2. derived from vocatif

Definitions

  1. Of or pertaining to calling

    Of or pertaining to calling; used in calling or vocation.

  2. Used in address

    Used in address; appellative; said of the case or form of the noun, pronoun, or adjective by which a person or thing is addressed.

    • In English, the vocative may be indicated by an addressee–address separation comma, or by the particle O, as in "What is the matter, sir?", "Mother, listen!", or "O Lord".
  3. The vocative case

  4. + 3 more definitions
    1. A word in the vocative case

    2. A vocative expression

    3. Something said to (or as though to) a particular person or thing

      Something said to (or as though to) a particular person or thing; an entreaty, an invocation.

      • [T]he two latter will hardly come neither, if they think it will be to hear your whining vocatives.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at vocative. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01vocative02calling03call04voice05vocal06vowel07syllable08particle

A definitional loop anchored at vocative. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

8 hops · closes at vocative

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA