1. Plural of elative; words or forms that express the highest degree of a quality, often formed by adding a suffix to an adjective (e.g., 'very good' or the superlative form).
Usage: linguistics term; common in grammar and language study
2. In some languages, a grammatical case or form used to express the highest degree of comparison or intensity.
Usage: linguistics; language-specific grammatical feature

Examples

• In Finnish, elatives are used to indicate movement out of or away from something.
• The teacher explained that elatives and superlatives serve similar functions in expressing extremes.
• Many languages employ elatives to convey the most intense form of an adjective.
• Students learning grammar often confuse comparatives with elatives.
• The elatives in Latin help express the highest degree of a quality.