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A grammar word. The vocative is the form of a word used when you call out to someone or address them directly. In the sentence "Maria, could you close the door?", "Maria" is vocative — it is not the subject doing anything, it is just the person being spoken to. English marks this only with and intonation, which is why the word rarely comes up in an English classroom. But in Latin, Greek, Polish, Czech and many other languages the noun actually changes shape when you address someone, and that special form is called the vocative case. So you will meet this word in three places: studying an old or Slavic language, reading , and occasionally reading about , where teachers speak of "the vocative " — the in "Let's eat, Grandma" that stops the sentence from meaning something terrible. It works as both an adjective ("vocative case") and a noun ("in the vocative").
呼格（語法：稱呼、呼喚對方時所用的形式）
組成From Latin vocātīvus, "for calling", from vocāre "to call" — the case you use when calling someone. Latin itself made this word as a translation of the Greek grammarians' term.
原始詞典資料6 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
vocativeadj/ˈvɑkətɪv/
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Of or pertaining to calling; used in calling or vocation.
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grammarhuman-scienceslinguisticsUsed in address; appellative; said of the case or form of the noun, pronoun, or adjective by which a person or thing is addressed.
- In English, the vocative may be indicated by an addressee–address separation comma, or by the particle O, as in "What is the matter, sir?", "Mother, listen!", or "O Lord".
vocativenoun/ˈvɑkətɪv/
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grammarhuman-scienceslinguisticsThe vocative case
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grammarhuman-scienceslinguisticsA word in the vocative case
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grammarhuman-scienceslinguisticsA vocative expression
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rareSomething said to (or as though to) a particular person or thing; an entreaty, an invocation.
- [T]he two latter will hardly come neither, if they think it will be to hear your whining vocatives.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。