ablative

• POS: Adjective, Noun
• HYPHEN: ab=la=tive

CIDE DICTIONARY

ablative, a. [F. ablatif, ablative, L. ablativus fr. ablatus. See Ablation.].

•  Taking away or removing.  [1913 Webster]

  "Where the heart is forestalled with misopinion, ablative directions are found needful to unteach error, ere we can learn truth."  [1913 Webster]
•  Applied to one of the cases of the noun in Latin and some other languages, -- the fundamental meaning of the case being removal, separation, or taking away.  [1913 Webster]

ablative,  

 The ablative case.  [1913 Webster]

ablative absolute, a construction in Latin, in which a noun in the ablative case has a participle (either expressed or implied), agreeing with it in gender, number, and case, both words forming a clause by themselves and being unconnected, grammatically, with the rest of the sentence; as, Tarquinio regnante, Pythagoras venit, i. e., Tarquinius reigning, Pythagoras came.

OXFORD DICTIONARY

ablative, n. & adj. Gram.
--n. the case (esp. in Latin) of nouns and pronouns (and words in grammatical agreement with them) indicating an agent, instrument, or location.
--adj. of or in the ablative.

Idiom

ablative absolute an absolute construction in Latin with a noun and participle or adjective in the ablative case (see ABSOLUTE).

Etymology

ME f. OF ablatif -ive or L ablativus (as ABLATION)