interrogative
/ˌɪn.təˈɹɒɡ.ə.tɪv//ˌɪn.təˈɹɑ.ɡə.tɪv/
interrogative adjective: asking or denoting a question.
Adjective
interrogative (comparative more interrogative, superlative most interrogative)
- Asking or denoting a question.
- an interrogative phrase
- an interrogative pronoun
- Pertaining to inquiry; questioning
- He took on an interrogative tone of voice.
- Thus speaking, the good man regarded his lady with an interrogative look. "I do n't know, dear!" she replied kindly, and sighing again.1847, Charles Sealsfield, Rambleton: A Romance of Fashionable Life in New-York during the Great Speculation of 1836, →OCLC, page 127
Noun
interrogative (plural interrogatives)
- A word (pronoun, pronominal adjective, or adverb) implying interrogation, or used for asking a question: why, who, when, etc.
- When question words are used, it is not necessary to add the ke particle, as it is already embedded in the interrogative2021 October 5, Gessica Puccini, “Lang Belta: the Belter language from SYFY/Amazon’s The Expanse”, in Lingoblog
- Synonym of question mark ⟨?⟩.
- There be five manner of points and divisions most used among cunning men; the which if they be well used, make the sentence very light and easy to be understood, both to the reader and hearer: and they be these, virgil,—come,—parenthesis,—plain point,—interrogative.1824, J. Johnson, Typographia
- Whoever introduced the several points, it seems that a full-point, a point called come, answering to our colon-point, a point called virgil answering to our comma-point, the parenthesis-points and interrogative-point, were used at the close of the fourteenth, or beginning of the fifteenth century.1842, F. Francillon, An Essay on Punctuation, page 9
- Synonyms:
- question mark
- A question; an interrogation.
- "Who are you, sir, and what is your business?" demanded the Marquis... "That is a fair interrogative, my lord," answered Dalgetty.1819, Sir Walter Scott, A Legend of Montrose, section XII
interrogative meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
interrogative in Hindi
- asking or denoting a question
- प्रश्नवाचक praśnavācak
interrogative in Urdu
- سوالیہ
interrogative in Bengali
- প্রশ্নবোধক, জিজ্ঞাসা প্রকাশক
interrogative in Malayalam
- ചോദ്യ പ്രതിസംജ്ഞ, പ്രശ്നാർത്ഥകപദം, പ്രശ്നരൂപത്തിലുള്ള, ചോദ്യരൂപത്തിലുള്ള
More languagesFewer languages
- interrogative in Kannada
- ಕೇಳ್ವಿ
- interrogative in Tagalog
- patanong
- interrogative in Arabic
- اِسْتِفْهَامِيّ istifhāmiyy, أَدَاة اِسْتِفْهَام
- interrogative in Vietnamese
- nghi vấn
Examples of interrogative in a sentence
- The regular place of the interrogative word, of whatever kind, is at the beginning of the sentence, or as near it as possible.1877, William Dwight Whitney, Essentials of English Grammar for the Use of Schools, §470:
- An interrogative particle ke is placed at the end of a question. […] The interrogative words are placed at the beginning of the sentence2021 October 5, Gessica Puccini, “Lang Belta: the Belter language from SYFY/Amazon’s The Expanse”, in Lingoblog:
Synonyms of interrogative
Forms of interrogative
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more interrogative |
| superlative | most interrogative |
| Noun | |
| plural | interrogatives |
Origin of interrogative
From Late Latin interrogātīvus, equivalent to interrogate + -ive.
Words formed from interrogative
- interrogative accent
- interrogative judgement
- interrogatively
- interrogative pronoun
- noninterrogative
- nterrogative adjective
- interrogative-point
Phrases with interrogative
Questions about interrogative
- What does interrogative mean?
- Interrogative means asking or denoting a question.
- What is interrogative in Hindi?
- Interrogative in Hindi is प्रश्नवाचक (praśnavācak). See Interrogative meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use interrogative in a sentence?
- The regular place of the interrogative word, of whatever kind, is at the beginning of the sentence, or as near it as possible.
- What part of speech is interrogative?
- Interrogative can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce interrogative?
- Interrogative is pronounced /ˌɪn.təˈɹɒɡ.ə.tɪv/ (UK).
Words near interrogative in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: interrogative (page history and authors); interrogative (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Interrogative (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); interrogative (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); interrogative (Kannada 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-gb-interrogative.ogg, en-us-interrogative.ogg.
Cite this entry: “interrogative.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/interrogative. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.