interrogative

American  

[in-tuh-rog-uh-tiv] / ˌɪn təˈrɒg ə tɪv /

adjective

1. of, relating to, or conveying a question.

2. Grammar. forming, constituting, or used in or to form a question.

   an interrogative pronoun, suffix, particle, or sentence.

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noun

• interrogatives
  plural

1. Grammar. an interrogative word, element, or construction, as who? and what?

interrogative British  

/ ˌɪntəˈrɒɡətɪv /

adjective

1. asking or having the nature of a question

2. denoting a form or construction used in asking a question

3. denoting or belonging to a class of words, such as which and whom, that are determiners, adjectives, or pronouns and serve to question which individual referent or referents are intended Compare demonstrative relative

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noun

1. an interrogative word, phrase, sentence, or construction

2. a question mark

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• uninterrogative
  adjective
• interrogatively
  adverb
• uninterrogatively
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• interrogatives
  plural

Etymology

Origin of interrogative

From the Late Latin word interrogātīvus, dating back to 1510–20. See interrogate, -ive

Explanation

Interrogative describes something questioning or that asks a question — like the interrogative tone of a cop grilling a suspect. It’s likely you first met the word interrogative in elementary school along with its pals — declaratory, exclamatory, and imperative. It can be an adjective or noun, but it always has to do with questions or being questioning. An interrogative sentence is one like "What time is it?" If your voice goes up at the end of a sentence because you're seeking information, your tone is interrogative. If you keep asking question after question, you've being extremely interrogative.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

interrogative interrogatives

She includes any information-seeking act, from a verbal interrogative to the sniff one might give a carton of milk to gauge its freshness.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 4, 2026

Over the holiday season, there were online pile-ons galore, with straight women repeatedly taking gay critics of the show to task over their negative or merely interrogative opinions of the series.

From Salon ● Jan. 2, 2026

Had Cooper approached this question with the same interrogative spirit with which she approached her own narrative assumptions, the book would have felt more complete.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 14, 2020

Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., was presiding over the Senate when Schumer posed his interrogative.

From Fox News ● Sep. 26, 2020

And then in an interrogative tone that showed he could hardly believe it himself, my brother told me that there had been an accident and that Milton was dead.

From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides

Speaking in a deadpan monotone, he is prone to responding to interrogatives with a curt “affirmative” or “negative” and saying things like “normal is for normal people.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 7, 2020

Piqued by the exclusion, he circulates a public letter, in which his resentments are masked by interrogatives and faux naïveté:

From The New Yorker ● Mar. 3, 2017

Now, all thinking men of all ages of history have ever tried to understand Nature as a whole and to answer regarding her three important questions represented by three interrogatives, what? how? and why?

From Notes on Islam by Khaja Muhammad Hussain

Usually ni is added when it is required by the verb, and the interrogatives ca or zo are always put at the end of the sentence, with zo preferred.

From Diego Collado's Grammar of the Japanese Language by Richard L. Spear

These interrogatives were addressed to the footman who had come in to say that the keeper had found one of Dagley's boys with a leveret in his hand just killed.

From Middlemarch by George Eliot