Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of, relating to, or being the grammatical case indicating placement within a location in some languages, as in Finnish Helsinkissä, “in Helsinki.”
  • noun The inessive case.
  • noun A word or form in the inessive case.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In grammar, expressing ‘position in’; locative.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective grammar Of, or relating to the grammatical case that in some languages indicates the state of being in or inside a location.
  • noun grammar The inessive case, or a word in that case.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

in- (“in”) +‎ essive

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Examples

Comments

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  • In Finland there's somewhere a hoard

    Of words they've saved up and stored.

    They have the inessive

    So they can use less of

    Prepositions they decline to afford.

    N.B.,the case(s) for economy: In addition to inessive (replacing "in"), this limerick will also work with abessive ("without"), adessive ("by," "while"), and essive ("as"). They are a frugal bunch, those Finns.

    May 12, 2015