a. and sb. Also 7 swasive. [ad. L. *suāsīvus, f. suās-: see SUASIBLE; cf. obs. F. suasif, It., Sp. suasivo.]
A. adj. Having or exercizing the power of persuading or urging; consisting in or tending to suasion; occas. const. of, exhorting or urging to.
1601. Weever, Mirr. Mart., A 3 b. Deliuer but in swasive eloquence Both of my life and death the veritie.
1660. Waterhouse, Arms & Arm., 28. The puissant people of Rome, whose practice may be thought most swasive with this … military Age.
1662. South, Serm. (1697), I. 62. Tho its command over them was but suasive, and political, yet it had the force of coaction.
1790. Cowper, Odyss., X. 206. And in wing’d accents suasive thus began.
1871. Earle, Philol. Engl. Tongue, 313. The genial and sunsive satire of the Biglow Papers.
1888. T. E. Holland, in Macm. Mag., Sept., 359/1. These presents bore Latin inscriptions, suasive of eating and drinking.
1897. Trotter, Life J. Nicholson, 18. Thanks to the suasive influence of British gold.
B. sb. A suasive speech, motive or influence.
1670. Phil. Trans., V. 1092. I shall not doubt but this Consideration will have the force of a great swasive.
1855. H. Rogers, Ess. (1874), II. vii. 335. By proper importunity, by flattering suasives.
1877. Smith & Wace’s Dict. Chr. Biog., I. 476/2. Bribes, and tempting offers … were the suasives employed to induce the Armenians to renounce their faith.
b. pl. Used to render the title Suasoriae of one of the works of Seneca the rhetorician.
1856. Merivale, Rom. Emp., xli. IV. 565. [Seneca] divides into the two classes of Suasives and Controversies the subjects of their scholastic exercises.
