optative

• As Burman saw, mihi must be the correct reading, the perfect subjunctive acting as a past optative: 'certe ego mihi praeferrem: utinam mihi, mentionem facienti noui tui coniugii, uerum illud omen uenerit, neque fallar, sed tu iam uxorem duxeris, ut ego uoueo'. —  The Last Poems of Ovid
• Some read it as in the indicative; but it is generally considered as in the optative, and altered by a figure which takes on iota from the middle, and cuts an an end of the word forming Euxoman_, instead of auxoiman an But what warrant have we for these alterations? —  Sermons on Various Important Subjects
• Mixed Eluyeabuli_, if I should have to give The optative is formed of the subjunctive, or of the two mixed-tenses of the indicative, by adding the desiderative particles velem_, uel_, or chi_; as eluli velem_! —  A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels - Volume 05 Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time
• And the Minyae, when they knew it, afterwards took up the corpse and buried it in the earth, mourning; and the sheep they took with them Footnote 1: This seems to be the only possible translation, but the optative is quite anomalous. —  The Argonautica
• Andiamo a Napoli; yes, but not yet; we are sure at this season to have an impatient patient or two to visit in the Babuino, or at Serny's; who, labouring under incipient fever which has not yet tamed them into submission, tell us they would--optative mood--be at Florence in a week, and add--in the imperative--that they must be in London in three! —  Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847.

Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the Same Context