expectative
Americanadjective
-
of or relating to expectation.
-
characterized by expectation.
Etymology
Origin of expectative
From the Medieval Latin word expectātīvus, dating back to 1480–90. See expectation, -ive
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
These acts constituted clear assumptions by the popes of power which under the law of the Church was not theirs, and, though the framers of the Pragmatic Sanction had motives which were more or less selfish for combatting the r�serve and the gr�ce expectative, there can be no question that the abuses aimed at were as real as they were represented to be.
From Project Gutenberg
All grants of benefices made by the pope in virtue of the droit d'expectative are hereby declared null.
From Project Gutenberg
They went to Stuttgart, where the W�rtemberg Government kept up a sort of expectative neutrality.
From Project Gutenberg
Further: feeble, expectative and vacillating minds, deprived of the faculty to embrace in all its depth and extension the task before them,—such minds cannot have a clear purpose, nor the firm perception of ways and means leading to the aim, and still less have they the sternness of conviction so necessary for men dealing with such mighty events, on which depend the life and death of a society.
From Project Gutenberg
"We are preserving," they say, "a dignified expectative attitude."
From Project Gutenberg
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.