Meanings
- not comparableraregrammarThat is, expressed in, or having the character of the grammatical mood (mode) of rhetorical questioning; percontatorial.
Destined for internal consumption, these three words nevertheless provoked the reply which you see here: who doesn’t? With an interrogation point, for the reply was percontative.
1960, Raymond Queneau [aut.] (+ unknown tr.), Zazie, page 1282 more examples
Some [grammatical writers] call these affections of the verb moods; others call them divisions, qualities, states, species, &c.; and as to the various appellations of each mood we have the personative and impersonative, the indicative, declarative, definitive, modus finiendi, modus fatendi, the rogative, interrogative, requisitive, percontative, assertive, enunciative, vocative, precative, deprecative, responsive, concessive, permissive, promissive, adhortative, optative, dubitative, imperative, mandative, conjunctive, subjunctive, adjunctive, potential, participial, infinitive, and probably many others.
1845, Edward Smedley, Hugh James Rose, and Henry John Rose [eds.], Encyclopædia Metropolitana I: “Universal Grammar and Philology”, pages 50–51‘Perfect Dicibles are of various sorts: Interrogative; Percontative; Adjurative; Optative; Imprecative; Execrative; Substitutive; Compellative; Hypothetical; and, lastly, Dubious.’
1849, Herman Melville, Mardi II (1922 reprint), page 285
Origin
- Latinpercontativus
- Englishpercontative
From the Latin percontativus.
More words from Latin
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
percontative. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/percontative
“percontative.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/percontative. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “percontative,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/percontative.
Source: percontative on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.