a. and sb. Also 5 vocatyf, 6 vocatyve, 6–7 vocatiue (6 foc-). [a. OF. vocatif, -ive (mod.F. vocatif = Sp., Pg., It. vocativo), or ad. L. vocātīv-us (sc. casus; also as sb.), f. vocāt-, ppl. stem of vocāre to call.]
A. adj. 1. Vocative case: That case of nouns, adjectives or pronouns, which in inflected languages is used to express address or invocation.
c. 1440. Gesta Rom., xci. 418. (Add. MS.). The fyfte is the vocatyf case.
1520. Whitinton, Vulg. (1527), 1. The verbe shall accorde with his nominative or vocative case.
1549. Lily, Introd. Gram., B ij. The seconde person is spoken to: as Tu, thou: vos, ye. And of this person is also euery vocatiue case.
1598. Shaks., Merry W., IV. i. 54. What is the Focatiue case (William ?).
1612. Brinsley, Lud. Lit., 101. In construing … we begin commonly of a Vocatiue case if there be one.
1668. Wilkins, Real Char., IV. vi. 448. Interjections, divers of which are said to govern the Nominative, Dative, Accusative, Vocative Case.
c. 1791. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3), VIII. 42/1. Thus the nominative case would pass into a vocative, of which the use is always to solicit attention.
1867. Brande & Cox, Dict. Sci., etc., III. 959. Vocative Case…. In strictness of speech it is not a case at all.
a. 1892. D. Fraser, Autobiog., i. 14. Reasoned and didactic prayers—what I once heard well stigmatised as ‘sermons in the vocative case.’
b. In fig. context. (Cf. next.)
14[?]. Piers of Fulham, 370, in Hazl., E. P. P., II. 15. To knowen folke that ben datyff: Their purches be called ablatif: They haue their iȝen vocatif.
2. Characteristic of, pertaining to, calling or addressing.
1644. Bulwer, Chirol., 55. To this vocative, alluring and inticing compellation of the Hand.
1827. G. S. Faber, Sacr. Cal. Prophecy (1844), III. 112. Pope Gregory, in his first epistle to the Emperor Leo Isauricus,… salutes him with the vocative title of Βασιλεῦ.
1871. Earle, Philol. Eng. Tongue, 162. As to the sense: the O prefixed merely imparts to the title a vocative effect.
B. sb. 1. The vocative case.
a. 1522. Lily, Gram. Rudim., in Colet’s Æditio (1537), A viij. Whan the nominatiue endeth in us, the vocatiue shal ende in e. Ibid. (1549), Introd. Gram., A vi b. All nounes of the neuter gendre … haue the nominatiue, the accusatyue, and the vocatiue lyke in both numbers.
1647. Jer. Taylor, Lat. Gram., 5. [In neuter nouns] the nominative, accusative, and vocative are alike in both numbers.
1719. Lat. Gram., 6. These Nouns following make their Vocative in e or in us.
1736. Ainsworth, Lat. Dict., II. O … is often understood both before an accusative and vocative.
1751. Harris, Hermes, I. viii. (1786), 145, note. The Vocative … was nothing more than the Form of address in front of names, titles, and epithets. Ibid., II. iv. 276. The Vocative … being not only unknown to the modern Languages, but often in the ancient being supplied by the Nominative.
c. 1792. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3), IX. 541/2. Those [Latin nouns] in um, whose nominative, accusative, and vocative … are alike.
1818. Stoddart, in Encycl. Metrop. (1845), I. 33/1. The vocative or ablative, which latter some writers have considered as the primary and original case of the noun.
1872. Geo. Eliot, Middlem., xxxv. endless vocatives that would still leave expression slipping helpless from the measurement of mortal folly!
2. An invocation or appeal. rare–1.
1747. Richardson, Clarissa (1811), II. v. 27. The two latter will hardly come neither, if they think it will be to hear your whining vocatives.
Hence Vocatively adv.
1662. Bp. Pearson, Creed (ed. 2), 145. The Nominative may as well stand vocatively without an Article.
1904. Bradley, Making of English, 192. To use the word [fellow] vocatively to an equal in the sense of ‘comrade.’
