dehortative

• (UK) IPA^(key): /diːˈhɔːtətɪv/

dehortative (comparative more dehortative, superlative most dehortative)

1. Dissuasive.
   • 1853, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Notes on English Divines, page 252:

     But the words of the Apostle (it will be said) are exhortative and dehortative.

   • 1864, John Tyndal, Review of Speeches on Union in the Free Church General Assembly of 1863, page 52:

     He was plainly oblivious of the dehortative mandate, ' Let us not do evil that good may come,' and appeared to have no dread of the 'just damnation' of those who do it.

   • 2000, Jeffrey A. Hammond, The American Puritan Elegy: A Literary and Cultural Study, page 99:

     This text, which underscored the communal and dehortative dimensions of Puritan elegy, was immediately followed by the miracle of the feeding, a biblical analogy to the elegiac swerve from death to renewed life.

   • 2004, Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, Spectral America: Phantoms and the National Imagination, page 45:

     Many elegies contain stylized accounts of peaceful deaths that offered a dehortative contrast to the grief-stricken panic of the living.

2. (grammar) Indicating a negative imperative or cautionary sense.
   • 1970, R. C.. Green, Marion Kelly, Studies in Oceanic Culture History, page 124:

     The dehortative verb typically occurs preceding a subordinate verb, as Samoan ? aua ne ?i galo, Maori kaua e wareware 'don't forget!'.

   • 2004, R. M. W. Dixon, Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, Adjective Classes: A Cross-Linguistic Typology, page 273:

     The few adjectives that can be marked for dehortative or apprehensive mood are all physical property or human propensity adjectives.

   • 2008, Frantisek Lichtenberk, A Grammar of Toqabaqita, page 854:

     For the sake of simplicity, the dehortative subject markers are treated as unanalyzed wholes;

dehortative (plural dehortatives)

1. Anything that serves to dissuade; a disincentive or discouragement.
   • 1828, Leigh Hunt, Lord Byron and some of his contemporaries, page 182:

     My father taking me to see Dr. Raine, Master of the Charter House, the doctor, who was very kind and pleasant, but who probably drew none of our deductions in favour of the young writer's abilitites, warned me against the perils of authorship; adding, as a final dehortative, that " the shelves were full."

   • 1850, Andrew Amos, On the Expediency of admitting the Testimony of Parties to Suits, page 80:

     There can, it is submitted, be no question that the prestige of a trial in Westminster Hall, before one of the ermined Quindecemviri, with the pomp and circumstance of a jury, a large inquisitive crowd, a row of reporters, eager to notify to a hundred towns every backsliding of a witness, are appliances to morality, dehortatives of perjury wanting in County Courts.

   • 1874, Lord Henry Cockburn Cockburn, Lord Cockburn's Works, page 387:

     Referring to this admonition, he says, in another part of the preceding letter, "I hope you got (naming the poem) back in safety, and have softened my dehortative to the ingenious, and, I am persuaded, amiable author.

   • 1879 May 24, George Saintsbury, “Ravelais et son Œuvre. Par Jean Fleary.”, in The Academy, volume 15, page 451:

     One might almost say that the whole thing was an allurement instead of a dehortative from metaphysics.

2. (grammar) A syntactic marker, word, or phrase that indicates a dehortative sense.
   • 1996, Malcolm Ross, Studies in Languages of New Britain and New Ireland, page 270:

     The dehortative is essentially a negative imperative in most cases, but can be used with all persons in the sense of 'should not', 'must not' or 'let not'.

   • 2004, R. M. W. Dixon, Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, Adjective Classes: A Cross-Linguistic Typology, page 273:

     An example of a context where a dehortative may be acceptable with an adjective is with mate 'die, be dead'.

   • 2008, Frantisek Lichtenberk, A Grammar of Toqabaqita, page 854:

     The only spontaneous instance of a dehortative recorded is the one in (20-47) below.

   • 2014, Sidney Herbert Ray, A Comparative Study of the Melanesian Island Languages, page 252:

     Mbi is also used as a dehortative instead of the negative re: ko mbi tegi ― don't cry ( for ko tegi re); ko mbi la — don't do it.

   • 2020, Anna Franca Plastina, Social-Ecological Resilience to Climate Change, page 22:

     As indicated in example (10), the renown young environmentalist, Greta Thunberg, uses the dehortative don't want you to for the apparent purpose of seeking to discourage the US political representatives from accepting her environmental discourse of climate change. The real function of the dehortative is, however, to strengthen the exhortative want you to, which is meant to attract the listeners' attention in order to urge them to manifestly support the scientific discourse of climate change and, thereby, take immediate action.