Word.ws English Dictionary

frequentative

/fɹɪˈkwɛntətɪv/

frequentative adjective: serving to express repetition of an action.

Adjective

frequentative (not comparable)

  1. Serving to express repetition of an action.
    • "Crackle" is an English frequentative verb derived from "crack".

Noun

frequentative (plural frequentatives)

  1. Any of a subclass of imperfective verbs that denote a repeated action, no longer productive in English, but found in e.g. Finnish, Latin, Russian, and Turkish.
    Synonyms:
    iterative

Synonyms of frequentative

Forms of frequentative

Adjective
alternative formfreq.
Noun
pluralfrequentatives

Origin of frequentative

Inherited from Middle English frequentatyf, from Late Latin frequentātīvus, from Latin frequentāre (“to do or use often”), from frequēns (“often, regular, constant, repeated, assiduous”) + -ō. By surface analysis, frequent + -ative.

Words formed from frequentative

Questions about frequentative

What does frequentative mean?
Frequentative means serving to express repetition of an action.
What part of speech is frequentative?
Frequentative can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce frequentative?
Frequentative is pronounced /fɹɪˈkwɛntətɪv/.

Words near frequentative in the dictionary

  1. frequentable
  2. frequentage
  3. frequentaneous
  4. frequentation
  5. frequentations
  6. frequentative
  7. frequentative aspect
  8. frequentatively
  9. frequentativeness
  10. frequentatives
  11. frequentativity

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: frequentative (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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