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mirative

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mirative

  • /ˈmɪɹətɪv/ US, UK

Where it comes from

Possibly from (ad)mirative, from French admiratif (“tending to admire”) (used by French diplomat and scholar Auguste Dozon (1822–1890), imitating the use of the Ancient Greek ἀπροσδόκητος (aprosdókētos, “unexpected”) in a similar context by Albanian translator and scholar Kostandin Kristoforidhi (1826–1895)), from Latin admīrārī, present active infinitive of admīror (“to admire, respect; to be astonished, to be surprised at”), from ad- (“to”) + mīror (“to admire, marvel at; to be amazed or astonished at”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *smey- (“to be glad, laugh”)).

noun miratives

  1. uncountable A grammatical mood that expresses (surprise at) unexpected revelations or new information. Although the Maidu 'evidential' -wéw (Shipley 1964:45) might correspond somewhat to the Washo visual, and the (unexemplified) Sierra Miwok 'circumstantial evidence' marker taˀ, tat, ˀiš- (Freeland 1951:169) may correspond to the Washo inferential (mirative).
  2. countable (An instance of) a form of a word which conveys this mood. [T]he speaker had heard on the radio that a bear had attacked a woman. From the description of her wounds on the radio, he infers, using the mirative/inferential particle lą̄ą̄, that she was dragged by the bear. […] This particle also implies that the speaker was surprised at the event. Bear attacks

adjective

  1. not comparable Of or relating to the mirative mood. The prefinal suffix -áʔyiʔ Mirative indicates that the speaker knows of the action described by the verb, not having observed it occur, but only inferentially from observation of its effects. It thus commonly conveys an emotion of surprise.

Opposite: non-mirative

Thesaurus

adjective

Opposite: non-mirative

Translations

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noun grammatical mood

DeutschAdmirativ
Русскийадмирати́вность admiratívnostʹ

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MLA

"mirative." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/mirative. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

mirative. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/mirative

Chicago

"mirative." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/mirative.

BibTeX
@misc{mirative_2026,
  title = {mirative},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/mirative},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}