whimperative
whimperative noun: an order or imperative phrased obliquely as a question, such as "would you mind closing the window?".
Noun
whimperative (plural whimperatives)
- An order or imperative phrased obliquely as a question, such as "would you mind closing the window?"
- Since whimperatives look like questions, the lowest hypersentence must be interrogative.1970, Jerrold Sadock, “Whimperatives”, in Studies Presented to Robert B. Lees by His Students, page 235
- We see this in the way that whimperatives use pro forma openings like Can you rather than other wordings with the same meaning, such as Are you capable of passing the salt?2007, Stephen Pinker, The Stuff of Thought, →ISBN, page 388
Forms of whimperative
| plural | whimperatives |
|---|
Origin of whimperative
Blend of whimper + imperative. Coined by Jerrold Sadock in a 1970 essay.
Questions about whimperative
- What does whimperative mean?
- Whimperative means an order or imperative phrased obliquely as a question, such as "would you mind closing the window?".
- What part of speech is whimperative?
- Whimperative is a noun.
- What is the plural of whimperative?
- The plural of whimperative is whimperatives.
Words near whimperative in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: whimperative (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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