caressive
Syllables: car·ess·ive/kəˈɹɛsɪv/
caressive adjective: having the nature of a caress; gentle, soothing.
Adjective
caressive (comparative more caressive, superlative most caressive)
- Having the nature of a caress; gentle, soothing.
- But the faithful creature [a dog] had soon returned, and comprehending that his mistress was confined in this great stone building, he whined and howled, waiting, within ten feet of the sentinel, a caressive reply.1859, Alexandre Dumas, “The Conciergerie”, in L. Lawford, transl., Chateau Rouge; or, The Reign of Terror (Railway Library; 188), London; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, Warnes, and Routledge, […], →OCLC...
- Too true that her soft eyes were constantly suffused with tears, and that, when speaking to me, her voice was inexpressibly tender and caressive—her smile so sad, so pitiful, that it would have touched the heart of a tiger!1857 October 3, [William Russell], “Kirke Webbe, the Privateer Captain”, in William, Robert Chambers, editors, Chambers’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science and Art, volume VIII, number 196...
- Synonyms:
- comforting, emollient, mollifying
- Of a diminutive: indicating affection or endearment.
- All diminutives eaſily acquire a careſſive character, as animula, ocellus, &c. the Greeks even called their diminutives ὐποκρισικα; and the ſofter form, lin, rather than kin, would moſt naturally be ſo appropriated.1801 September 1, Canakin [pseudonym], “Desultory Comments on Mason’s Supplement to Johnson’s Dictionary”, in The Monthly Magazine, or British Register, volume XII, part II, number 77, London...
- Russian diminutives are of two kinds: caressive and contemptuous; ex. домъ, a house, до́микъ, a pretty little house, домѝшко, a miserable hut.1827, James Heard, A Practical Grammar of the Russian Language, St. Petersburg: Printed for the author, and sold by Sleunine, and by Boosey and Sons London, →OCLC, § 69, page 66
Noun
caressive (plural caressives)
- A type of diminutive indicating affection or endearment.
- [W]e, like the ancient Mexicans and many another lower race, have terms of praise and endearment,—"a jewel of a babe," and the like,—legions of caressives and diminutives in the use of which some of the Low German dialects are more lavish even than Lowland Scotch.1896, Alexander Francis Chamberlain, “The Name Child”, in The Child and Childhood in Folk-thought: (The Child in Primitive Culture), New York, N.Y.; London: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, page 88
- An interesting characteristic of the following extracts is the abundance of diminutives also termed “caressives” in Greek. -άκι, -ίτσα and -ούλα here are derivational suffixes for indexing the diminutive and their use indicates affection, endearment and solidarity serving thus as markers of...2010, Mariza Georgalou, “Pathfinding Discourses of Self in Social Network Sites”, in Rotimi Taiwo, editor, Handbook of Research on Discourse Behavior and Digital Communication: Language Structures...
Examples of caressive in a sentence
- 'It's a lovely day, today!' Mrs Bolton would say in her caressive, persuasive voice.1928, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter IX, in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, [Germany?]: Privately printed, →OCLC, page 114:
- Some of these have a caressive signification, by recalling to our minds the simplicity of childhood.1830, David Booth, “Introduction”, in An Analytical Dictionary of the English Language; … In Two Volumes, volume I, London: Printed and...
- One another suffix used as a caressive and appellative is -(l)y.2015, Fatma Şahan Güney, “Eurasia [Tatar]”, in Nicola Grandi, Lívia Körtvélyessy, editors, Edinburgh Handbook of Evaluative Morphology...
Synonyms of caressive
Forms of caressive
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more caressive |
| superlative | most caressive |
| Noun | |
| plural | caressives |
Origin of caressive
From caress + -ive.
Words formed from caressive
Words that rhyme with caressive
- incessive
- progressive
- aggressive
- ingressive
- oppressive
- depressive
- egressive
- essive
- expressive
- impressive
- obsessive
- possessive
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- recessive
- successive
- accessive
- concessive
- degressive
- digressive
- double possessive
- passive-aggressive
- pressive
- regressive
- retrogressive
- transgressive
- abessive
- addressive
- adessive
- alloaggressive
- allosuppressive
- antessive
- antidepressive
- antiexpressive
- antioppressive
- antiprogressive
- antirepressive
- anxiodepressive
- atheroprogressive
- atherosuppressive
- autogressive
- autoregressive
- autorepressive
- brogressive
- cardiodepressive
- cardiosuppressive
- compressive
- concrescive
- confessive
- congressive
- corepressive
- crescive
- decompressive
- derepressive
- dispossessive
- effervescive
- excessive
- exessive
- fauxgressive
- fibrosuppressive
- future perfect progressive
- future progressive
Questions about caressive
- What does caressive mean?
- Caressive means having the nature of a caress; gentle, soothing.
- How do you use caressive in a sentence?
- 'It's a lovely day, today!' Mrs Bolton would say in her caressive, persuasive voice.
- What part of speech is caressive?
- Caressive can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce caressive?
- Caressive is pronounced /kəˈɹɛsɪv/ (UK).
Words near caressive in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: caressive (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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