a. and sb. [a. Fr. ablatif, -ive, ad. L. ablātīv-us, lit. of or pertaining to removal from, f. ablāt- ppl. stem of auferre to carry away (see ABLATE and -IVE); applied by Cæsar to a case of the noun found in L. but not in Gr. In Latin only used in the grammatical sense.]
1. Name of one of the cases of the noun in Latin and some other Aryan languages, the proper function of which was to express direction from a place, or time. In Latin it was extended to the source whence an action proceeds, the cause or ideal source of an event, the instrument and agent or material sources of an action, the manner in which, and sometimes the place and time at which anything is done. Often used substantively, case being understood.
The ablative was one of the original Aryan cases. In Greek, Teutonic, and Slavonic, it was lost or formally confounded with other cases; but it survived in Latin, where it had absorbed the Instrumental, and in part the Locative of earlier Aryan (whence its extension in L. to other than ablative senses). The case, not occurring in Greek, was without a name, till the appropriate one of Cāsus Ablātīvus was given to it, from its primary function, by Julius Caesar. Since the rise of Comparative Philology the name has been applied to the same case wherever found existing, as well as to the relation properly expressed by it, however this may be formally shown.
Ablative Absolute, in Latin Grammar, an ablative case of a noun with a participle in concord, expressing the time, occasion, or circumstance of a fact stated, as sole oriente, tenebrae aufugiunt, at, upon, or through the sun rising, darkness flees away.
c. 1440. Gesta Rom. (1879), 418. The vjt. case is ablatif case, and are they that stelyn and leuyn on oþer mennes goodes.
1527. Whitinton, Vulgaria, 3. Somtyine it is put in the ablatyue case absolute.
1589. Pappe with an Hatchet, 25 (1844). We haue brought Martin to the ablative case, that is, to bee taken away with a Bulls voyder.
c. 1620. A. Hume, Orthogr. Brit. Tong. (1865), 29. The ablative is noated with prepositiones in, with, be, and sik lyke.
1861. Max Müller, Sci. Lang., 100. We learn from a fragment of Cæsar’s work, De Analogia, that he was the inventor of the term ablative in Latin.
1879. Whitney, Sanscrit Gr., § 289. The ablative is the ‘from’-case, in the various senses or that preposition: it is used to express removal, separation, distinction, issue, and the like.
† 2. (From the etymol. meaning). Of or pertaining to taking away or removing; ablatitious. Obs.
1567–9. Harding, On Iewell’s Defense of the Apology (1611), 508. Such is the Logicke, such are the topicks of this new negatiue and ablatiue Divinity … taking away many good things pertaining to the maintenance of Christian Religion and God’s honour.
1622. Bp. Hall, Sermon bef. His Maiestie, 15 Sept., 489. Ablatiue directions are first needfull to vnteach error ere wee can learne truth.
1713. Flamsteed, Letter to Mr. Sharp, in Bailey’s Acc. of Flamsteed, 304 D (1835). [Sir Isaac Newton] has lately published his Principia anew, wherein he makes this equation ablative where it was formerly to be added, and to be added where it was subductive.
