caressive — English Dictionary

Adjective

1. Having the nature of a caress; gentle, soothing.

   Synonyms

   comfortingemollientmollifying

   Examples

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   But the faithful creature [a dog] had soon returned, and comprehending that his mistress was confined in this great stone building, he whined and howled, waiting, within ten feet of the sentinel, a caressive reply.

   Too true that her soft eyes were constantly suffused with tears, and that, when speaking to me, her voice was inexpressibly tender and caressive—her smile so sad, so pitiful, that it would have touched the heart of a tiger!

   'It's a lovely day, today!' Mrs Bolton would say in her caressive, persuasive voice.

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   Under the light she was not so young as the standardized modern frocks assume all women to be, but a woman of thirty, eight years older than the blonde Sadie, who moved automatically to the mirror to take off her hat and make caressive pats at her finely spun hair, while examining her smoothly modelled face with care, a ritual imposed on her by the presence of any mirror.

2. Of a diminutive: indicating affection or endearment.

   Examples

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   All diminutives eaſily acquire a careſſive character, as animula, ocellus, &c. the Greeks even called their diminutives ὐποκρισικα; and the ſofter form, lin, rather than kin, would moſt naturally be ſo appropriated.

   Russian diminutives are of two kinds: caressive and contemptuous; ex. домъ, a house, до́микъ, a pretty little house, домѝшко, a miserable hut.

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   Ling (a termination inherited from the Anglo-Saxons,) is either a diminutive, as little, or descriptive of family, as kind. Hence we have darling, (or dearling,) firstling, foundling, gosling, &c. Some of these have a caressive signification, by recalling to our minds the simplicity of childhood.

   Caressive forms and endearments, which are used when addressing someone in an affectionate way, are frequently formed by attaching -kAy to words conveying precious or valued things: (6) a. altın-kay-ım / gold-dim-1pos / 'my precious'

Noun

1. A type of diminutive indicating affection or endearment.

   Examples

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   [W]e, like the ancient Mexicans and many another lower race, have terms of praise and endearment,—"a jewel of a babe," and the like,—legions of caressives and diminutives in the use of which some of the Low German dialects are more lavish even than Lowland Scotch.

   An interesting characteristic of the following extracts is the abundance of diminutives also termed “caressives” in Greek. -άκι, -ίτσα and -ούλα here are derivational suffixes for indexing the diminutive and their use indicates affection, endearment and solidarity serving thus as markers of informal positive politeness[…].

   One another suffix used as a caressive and appellative is -(l)y. Like -kAy, it is attached to kinship terms, generally to the ones expressing closer relationships.