Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Plural form of
optative .
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word optatives.
Examples
-
˜Would that everybody desired that not-X!™, and the desires expressed by these two optatives are not compossible, or at least, are only compossible on the condition that we all have inconsistent desires (both for X and for not-X).
Russell's Moral Philosophy Pigden, Charles 2007
-
As such the two optatives contradict each other, not because they describe incompatible facts but because they prescribe incompatible states of affairs.
Russell's Moral Philosophy Pigden, Charles 2007
-
Judgments that this or that is good or bad were to be construed as disguised optatives
Russell's Moral Philosophy Pigden, Charles 2007
-
But Russell is better placed to meet this difficulty, since in his view judgments about what is ultimately good and bad are disguised optatives, designed to express desires or wishes of a certain kind.
Russell's Moral Philosophy Pigden, Charles 2007
-
Even 'the college prizeman, and the college tutor cannot read a chorus in the Trilogy but what his mind instinctively wanders on optatives, choriambi, and that happy conjecture of Smelfungus in the antistrophe.' [
The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 Various
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.