Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Ablative
1.
Taking away or removing.
[Obs.]
Where the heart is forestalled with misopinion,
ablative
directions are found needful to unteach error, ere we can learn truth. Bp. Hall.
2.
(Gram.)
Applied to one of the cases of the noun in Latin and some other languages, – the fundamental meaning of the case being removal, separation, or taking away.
Ab′la-tive
,(Gram.)
The ablative case.
ablative absolute
, a construction in Latin, in which a noun in the ablative case has a participle (either expressed or implied), agreeing with it in gender, number, and case, both words forming a clause by themselves and being unconnected, grammatically, with the rest of the sentence; as, Tarquinio regnante, Pythagoras venit, i. e., Tarquinius reigning, Pythagoras came.
Webster 1828 Edition
Ablative
AB'LATIVE
,Adj.
A word applied to the sixth case of nouns in the Latin language, in which case are used words when the actions of carrying away, or taking from, are signified.
Ablative absolute, is when a word in that case, is independent, in construction, of the rest of the sentence.