ablative

1. 1.

   relating to the ablative case

   linguistics

2. 2.

   tending to ablate; i.e. to be removed or vaporized at very high temperature

   “ablative material on a rocket cone”

   Similarsubtractive

1. 1.

   the case indicating the agent in passive sentences or the instrument or manner or place of the action described by the verb

   Synonymsablative case

   Broaderoblique

Other forms of ablative

plural

ablatives·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about ablative

What does ablative mean?

ablative means "relating to the ablative case". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in ablative?

ablative has 3 syllables: a-bla-tive. The stress falls on "a".

What is another word for ablative?

Close synonyms include ablative case. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is ablative a common word?

ablative is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.