caressive
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /kəˈɹɛsɪv/
rhymes: -ɛsɪv
Forms: form: more caressive
form: most caressive
Etymology: From caress + -ive.
Senses: examples: text: But the faithful creature [a dog] had soon returned, and comprehending that his mistress was confined in this great stone building, he whined and howled, waiting, within ten feet of the sentinel, a caressive reply.
ref: 1859, Alexandre Dumas, “The Conciergerie”, in L. Lawford, transl., Chateau Rouge; or, The Reign of Terror (Railway Library; 188), London; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, Warnes, and Routledge, […], →OCLC, pages 245–246:
text: Too true that her soft eyes were constantly suffused with tears, and that, when speaking to me, her voice was inexpressibly tender and caressive—her smile so sad, so pitiful, that it would have touched the heart of a tiger!
ref: 1857 October 3, [William Russell], “Kirke Webbe, the Privateer Captain”, in William, Robert Chambers, editors, Chambers’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science and Art, volume VIII, number 196, London; Edinburgh: W. & R. Chambers […], →OCLC, chapter X, page 220, column 1:
text: 'It's a lovely day, today!' Mrs Bolton would say in her caressive, persuasive voice.
ref: 1928, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter IX, in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, [Germany?]: Privately printed, →OCLC, page 114:
text: Under the light she was not so young as the standardized modern frocks assume all women to be, but a woman of thirty, eight years older than the blonde Sadie, who moved automatically to the mirror to take off her hat and make caressive pats at her finely spun hair, while examining her smoothly modelled face with care, a ritual imposed on her by the presence of any mirror.
ref: 1950, Norman Lindsay, Dust or Polish?, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 2:
synonyms: comforting
emollient
mollifying
glosses: Having the nature of a caress; gentle, soothing.
examples: text: All diminutives eaſily acquire a careſſive character, as animula, ocellus, &c. the Greeks even called their diminutives ὐποκρισικα; and the ſofter form, lin, rather than kin, would moſt naturally be ſo appropriated.
ref: 1801 September 1, Canakin [pseudonym], “Desultory Comments on Mason’s Supplement to Johnson’s Dictionary”, in The Monthly Magazine, or British Register, volume XII, part II, number 77, London: Printed for Richard Phillips, […], →OCLC, page 98, column 1:
text: Russian diminutives are of two kinds: caressive and contemptuous; ex. домъ, a house, до́микъ, a pretty little house, домѝшко, a miserable hut.
ref: 1827, James Heard, A Practical Grammar of the Russian Language, St. Petersburg: Printed for the author, and sold by Sleunine, and by Boosey and Sons London, →OCLC, § 69, page 66:
text: Ling (a termination inherited from the Anglo-Saxons,) is either a diminutive, as little, or descriptive of family, as kind. Hence we have darling, (or dearling,) firstling, foundling, gosling, &c. Some of these have a caressive signification, by recalling to our minds the simplicity of childhood.
ref: 1830, David Booth, “Introduction”, in An Analytical Dictionary of the English Language; … In Two Volumes, volume I, London: Printed and published by J. and C. Adlard, […], →OCLC, page xliii:
text: Caressive forms and endearments, which are used when addressing someone in an affectionate way, are frequently formed by attaching -kAy to words conveying precious or valued things: (6) a. altın-kay-ım / gold-dim-1pos / 'my precious'
ref: 2015, Fatma Şahan Güney, “Eurasia [Tatar]”, in Nicola Grandi, Lívia Körtvélyessy, editors, Edinburgh Handbook of Evaluative Morphology, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, →ISBN, part II, page 312:
topics: human-sciences
linguistics
sciences
glosses: Of a diminutive: indicating affection or endearment.
Derived terms: caressively
Related terms: caress
caresser
caressingly