ablative

Etymology

From Middle English ablative, ablatife, ablatyf, ablatif, from Old French ablatif (“the ablative case”), from Latin ablātīvus (“expressing removal”), from ablātus (“taken away”), from auferō (“I take away”). The engineering/nautical sense originates from ablate + -ive.

adj

1. (grammar) Applied to one of the cases of the noun in some languages, the fundamental meaning of the case being removal, separation, or taking away, and to a lesser degree, instrument, place, accordance, specifications, price, or measurement.
2. (archaic) Pertaining to taking away or removing.
   Where the heart is forestalled with misopinion, ablative directions are found needful to unteach error, ere we can learn truth. 1622, Joseph Hall, The Works of Joseph Hall: Sermons, page 123
3. (engineering, nautical, astronautics) Sacrificial, wearing away or being destroyed in order to protect the underlying material, as in ablative paints used for antifouling, or ablative heat shields used to protect spacecraft during reentry. .
   The inner layer of warship protection consists of ablative armor plate designed to "boil away" when heated. The vaporized armor material scatters a DEW beam, rendering it ineffectual. 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Weapons: Ablative Armor Codex entry
4. (medicine) Relating to the removal of a body part, tumor, or organ.
5. (geology) Relating to the erosion of a land mass; relating to the melting or evaporation of a glacier.

noun

1. (grammar) The ablative case.
2. An ablative material.