accusative
Syllables: ac·cusa·tiveUK/əˈkjuːzətɪv/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
British/əˈkjʉwzətɪv/
accusative adjective: producing accusations; in a manner that reflects a finding of fault or blame.
Adjective
accusative (comparative more accusative, superlative most accusative)
- Producing accusations; in a manner that reflects a finding of fault or blame
- This hath been a very accusative age.1641 November 22, Edward Dering, a speech
- The proprietor of the store was rude, insulting and accusative.1984 April 14, William F. Orrell, “Bad Business”, in Gay Community News, page 4
- Synonyms:
- accusatory, accusatorial
- Applied to the case (as the fourth case of Latin, Lithuanian and Greek nouns) which expresses the immediate object on which the action or influence of a transitive verb has its limited influence. Other parts of speech, including secondary or predicate direct objects, will also influence a sentence’s construction. In German the case used for direct objects.
Noun
accusative (plural accusatives)
- The accusative case.
- A word inflected in the accusative case.
- 65 mošu tat̰ ās nōit̮ darəγəm yat̰ . . ‘quickly it (tat̰) happened, it (was) not long till . . . — drūm avantəm airištəm: according to Bartholomae IF. 12. 146 the author of this part was led to use accusatives here (instead of nominatives) by the preceding sentence yezi ǰum frapayeni.1911, Hans Reichelt, Avesta Reader: Texts, Notes, Glossary and Index, Strassburg [Strasbourg]: Verlag von Karl J. Trübner, page 105
- There is some antecedent in old Latin; but as usual the influence is Greek too, for Greek prose and poetry freely use accusatives which are to some extent adverbial accusatives, or accusatives of respect.1944, W[illiam] F[rancis] Jackson Knight, “Language, Verse, and Style”, in Roman Vergil (Peregrine Books), Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1966, page 265
accusative meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Bengali
accusative in Hindi
- accusative case
- द्वितीया विभक्ति dvitīyā vibhakti
accusative in Tamil
- producing accusations; accusatory
- இரண்டாம் வேற்றுமை iraṇṭām vēṟṟumai
- related to accusative case
- இரண்டாம் வேற்றுமை iraṇṭām vēṟṟumai
- accusative case
- இரண்டாம் வேற்றுமை iraṇṭām vēṟṟumai
accusative in Marathi
- related to accusative case
- द्वितीया विभक्ती dvitīyā vibhaktī
accusative in Bengali
- accusative case
- কর্ম কারক kormo karok
More languagesFewer languages
- accusative in Telugu
- ద్వితీయా విభక్తి dvitīyā vibhakti
- accusative in Malayalam
- പ്രതിഗ്രാഹിക pratigrāhika
- accusative in Gujarati
- દ્વિતીયા dvitīyā
- accusative in Arabic
- مَنْصُوب manṣūb
- accusative in Indonesian
- akusatif
- accusative in Thai
- กรรมการก gam-má-gaa-rók
- accusative in Vietnamese
- đối cách
Synonyms of accusative
Forms of accusative
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more accusative |
| superlative | most accusative |
| Noun | |
| plural | accusatives |
Origin of accusative
First attested in the mid 15th century. From Middle English accusative, from Anglo-Norman accusatif or Middle French acusatif or from Latin accūsātīvus (“having been blamed”), from accūsō (“to blame”). Equivalent to accuse + -ative. The Latin form is a mistranslation of the Ancient Greek grammatical term αἰτιᾱτική (aitiātikḗ, “expressing an effect”). This term actually comes from αἰτιᾱτός (aitiātós, “caused”) + -ῐκός (-ĭkós, adjective suffix), but was reanalyzed as coming from αἰτιᾱ- (aitiā-), the stem of the verb αἰτιάομαι (aitiáomai, “to blame”), + -τῐκός (-tĭkós, verbal adjective suffix).
Words formed from accusative
Phrases with accusative
Questions about accusative
- What does accusative mean?
- Accusative means producing accusations; in a manner that reflects a finding of fault or blame.
- What is accusative in Hindi?
- Accusative in Hindi is द्वितीया विभक्ति (dvitīyā vibhakti). See Accusative meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is accusative?
- Accusative can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce accusative?
- Accusative is pronounced /əˈkjuːzətɪv/ (UK).
Words near accusative in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: accusative (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.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-accusative.ogg.
Cite this entry: “accusative.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/accusative. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.