Approbative

{{Short description|Words or grammatical forms that denote positive affects}} {{More citations needed|date=August 2025}}

In linguistics, '''approbatives''' are words or grammatical forms that denote a positive affect; that is, they express the appreciation or approval of the speaker.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Definition of APPROBATIVE |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/approbative |access-date=2025-08-05 |website=www.merriam-webster.com |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-07-19 |title=Approbative vs Approbatory: Meaning And Differences |url=https://thecontentauthority.com/blog/approbative-vs-approbatory |access-date=2025-08-05 |language=en-US}}</ref> ''{{lang|es|!Claro!}}'' (Spanish) and "Gotcha!" (English) are examples.

Sometimes a term may begin as a pejorative word and eventually be adopted in an approbative sense. In historical linguistics, this phenomenon is known as ''amelioration''. Examples from English include "punk", "nerd", "badass", "sick", and "killer".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Tiwari |first=Matangi |date=2025-01-28 |title=How do bad words turn good? |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/blog/2025/01/28/how-do-bad-words-turn-good/ |access-date=2025-08-05 |language=en-GB}}</ref>

==See also== {{wiktionary}} *Laudative, or praising affect *Pejorative, or negative affect

==References== {{reflist}}

Category:Connotation *

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