causative
caus·at·ive/ˈkɔzətɪv/adjective, noun
causative is spelled C-A-U-S-A-T-I-V-E, 3 syllables: caus·at·ive. The wrong spelling people search most is causitive: about 30 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 2 in 10 of all searches for the word. Causative is an adjective meaning “Acting as a cause”.
How many letters and syllables are in causative?
| Letters | 9: C-A-U-S-A-T-I-V-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3: caus·at·ive |
| In writing | about once in every 2 million words; the 42,680th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, causitive, about 30 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell causative?
Causative is spelled C-A-U-S-A-T-I-V-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 2 in 10 of the searches for causative in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is causative?
Causative appears about once in every 2 million words in written English, the 42,680th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce causative?
- UK /ˈkɔːzətɪv/
- US /ˈkɔzətɪv/
- US [ˈkɔ.zə.ɾɪv]
Causative has 3 syllables, split caus·at·ive in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-causative.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of causative
- causatives plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does causative mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Acting as a cause.
- 2
Involving, or affected by, causality.
Such statistical analysis can establish correlation but cannot tell us whether the correlation is proximally causative, distally causative, or noncausative.
- 3
Expressing a cause or causation.
The ablative is a causative case.
noun
- 1
An expression of an agent causing or forcing a patient to perform an action (or to be in a certain condition).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Causative in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does causative come from?
From French causatif, from Latin causātīvus (“causative, pertaining to a lawsuit, accusative”), from causa (“cause”); see cause (verb) and -ive.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).