a. and sb. rare. [f. compellāt- (see COMPELLATE) + -IVE.]
A. adj. Denoting address.
In mod. Dicts.
B. sb. A word used as a name, title, or appellation; = COMPELLATION 2 b, c.
1656. Stanley, Hist. Philos., I. VIII. 41. Compellative is a thing in speaking which we call another, as: Atrides, Agamemnon, King of men.
1830. Frasers Mag., I. 209. Many a gentleman fully entitled to such a compellative.
† b. = Vocative (case). Obs.
1849. J. W. Gibbs, Philol. Stud. (1857), 47. We have, in continuous discourse, the compellative or vocative.