Word.ws English Dictionary

caressives

caressives is the plural of caressive.

Meaning of caressive

Noun

caressive (plural caressives)

  1. 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

See all 3 meanings of caressive

Questions about caressives

What is caressives the plural of?
Caressives is the plural of caressive.

Words near caressives in the dictionary

  1. caressing names
  2. caressingly
  3. caressings
  4. caressive
  5. caressively
  6. caressives
  7. carest
  8. Careston
  9. caret
  10. caret notation
  11. caretake

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: caressives (page history and authors); 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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Cite this entry: “caressives.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/caressives. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.