[Vocabulary] Donation vs donative

[Vicky42]

Hello everyone,

I have a question about a "complete the sentences using the correct form of the word in capitals".

The word in capitals is DONATE and the sentence is "The winner gave a big donation to charity." Now, there's another noun, DONATIVE, which is not listed in some dictionaries, but which is, apparently, a synonym: "a special donation; a gift".

My question is, is it ok to say "The winner gave a big donative to charity"?

Thanks in advance.

 

[probus]

Donative is not a noun. The CoCA has no occurrence of donative, and the CBE has only one, in which donative is clearly an adjective rather than a noun.

Also, as an elderly native speaker of AmE who also has some experience of BrE, I have never seen or heard the word donative.

These supposed online dictionaries that claim "donative" is a noun are just plain wrong. It would take the OED to convince me otherwise.

 

[charliedeut]

Although I'm not a native speaker, I've been learning, reading and listening to English for a long while now (Oh my! Over 20 years already!) and I had never seen/heard the word "donative". In fact, when I read the post title, I thought it was a case of "false friends", since the Word "donativo" does exist in Spanish meaning "donation".

However, I did look it up in some dictionaries, and it surprised me that Merriam-Webster is one of those considering "donative" to be, primarily, a noun: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/donative

Thefreedictionary.com (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/donative), colllinsdictionary.com (http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/donative?showCookiePolicy=true) and Wordreference.com (http://www.wordreference.com/definition/donative) are also among such cases.

The word does not even appear in macmillandictionary.com (http://www.macmillandictionary.com/spellcheck/british/?q=donative).

PS: I could not check OED myself (not subscribed), but maybe you'll have to change your mind real son, probus! ;-)

 

[5jj]

COCA has only one citation for 'donative' as a noun, and the BNC has none. I shall continue to live without the word.

ps. I had overlooked probus's post.

 

[Vicky42]

Donative is not a noun.

These supposed online dictionaries that claim "donative" is a noun are just plain wrong.

Donative is a noun indeed.

And I wouldn't call Merriam-Webster or Colllins "supposed dictionaries".

 

[Vicky42]

I shall continue to live without the word.

I intend to do so, too. ;-)

But what would you tell a student who completed that sentence with the word donative?

 

[Tdol]

Tell them the truth- the word exists, but is rarely used. In fact it is so rare than many native speakers won't have heard it, so donation is a better choice.

Take the opportunity to show them how to look for word frequency in http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/ or http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/ so they can help make informed choices themselves, and not simply depend on dictionary entries as absolutes. ;-)

 

[Vicky42]

Thanks for your answer Tdol! :up:

 

[Jaskin]

Hi,
Please note I'm not a teacher nor a native speaker.

Google books Ngram Viewer is also a handy tool. Really rare word and for the last 150 years nearly not in usage.

Cheers.

 

[MikeNewYork]

Ngram is a very useful tool.