The story
- Latin · derived fromdatīvus“appropriate for giving”
- English todaydative
From Latin datīvus (“appropriate for giving”), itself from datus (the past participle of dō (“to give”)) + -īvus (“-ive”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
dative
Today it means: Denoting the case of a noun which expresses the remoter or indirect object, generally indicated in English by to or for with the objective. Full definition →
Latin datīvus