ablative
/əˈbleɪ.tɪv//ˈæb.lə.tɪv/
ablative adjective: applied to one of the cases of the noun in some languages, the fundamental meaning of the case being removal, separation, or taking away, and to a lesser degree, instrument, place, accordance, specifications, price, or measurement.
Adjective
ablative (not comparable)
- Applied to one of the cases of the noun in some languages, the fundamental meaning of the case being removal, separation, or taking away, and to a lesser degree, instrument, place, accordance, specifications, price, or measurement.
- Pertaining to taking away or removing.
- Where the heart is forestalled with misopinion, ablative directions are found needful to unteach error, ere we can learn truth.1622, Joseph Hall, The Works of Joseph Hall: Sermons, page 123
- Sacrificial, wearing away or being destroyed in order to protect the underlying material, as in ablative paints used for antifouling, or ablative heat shields used to protect spacecraft during reentry. .
- The inner layer of warship protection consists of ablative armor plate designed to "boil away" when heated. The vaporized armor material scatters a DEW beam, rendering it ineffectual.2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Weapons: Ablative Armor Codex entry
- Relating to the removal of a body part, tumor, or organ.
- Relating to the erosion of a land mass; relating to the melting or evaporation of a glacier.
Noun
ablative (plural ablatives)
- The ablative case.
- An ablative material.
ablative meaning in Tamil
ablative in Tamil
- பொருள்
Forms of ablative
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| alternative form | abl. |
| alternative form | Abl. |
| Noun | |
| plural | ablatives |
Origin of ablative
From Middle English ablative, ablatife, ablatyf, ablatif, from Old French ablatif (“the ablative case”), from Latin ablātīvus (“expressing removal”), from ablātus (“taken away”), from auferō (“to take away”). The engineering/nautical sense originates from ablate + -ive.
Words formed from ablative
- ablatival
- ablatively
- ablativeness
- ablativity
- atheroablative
- cryoablative
- cytoablative
- immunoablative
- locoablative
- lymphoablative
- myeloablative
- neuroablative
- non-ablative
- nonablative
- periablative
- phosphoablative
- postablative
- ablative absolute
- loose ablative
- partitive ablative
- partitive dative
- partitive genitive
Phrases with ablative
Questions about ablative
- What does ablative mean?
- Ablative means applied to one of the cases of the noun in some languages, the fundamental meaning of the case being removal, separation, or taking away, and to a lesser degree, instrument, place, accordance, specifications, price, or measurement.
- What is ablative in Tamil?
- Ablative in Tamil is பொருள். See Ablative meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is ablative?
- Ablative can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce ablative?
- Ablative is pronounced /ˈæb.lə.tɪv/ (US).
Words near ablative in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: ablative (page history and authors); ablative (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-ablative.ogg, en-ca-ablative.ogg.
Cite this entry: “ablative.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ablative. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.