Definition:
A sentence that gives advice or instructions or that expresses a request or command. (Compare with sentences that make a statement, ask a question, or express an exclamation.)
See also:
Etymology:
From the Latin, "command"Examples:
- "All hope abandon, ye who enter here!"
(Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy) - "Think Small."
(advertising slogan of Volkswagen) - "Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest."
(Mark Twain) - "Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd.
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,
I don't care if I never get back."
(Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game") - "Seek simplicity, and distrust it."
(Alfred North Whitehead) - Westley: Give us the gate key.
Yellin: I have no gate key.
Inigo Montoya: Fezzik, tear his arms off.
Yellin: Oh, you mean this gate key.
(The Princess Bride, 1987) - "And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
(President John F. Kennedy, 1961) - "Leave the gun. [pause] Take the cannolis."
(Clemenza in The Godfather, 1972) - "Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia!"
(El Jefe, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, 1974) - "Take this quarter, go downtown, and have a rat gnaw that thing off your face!"
(John Candy as Buck Russell in Uncle Buck, 1989) - "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force."
(Darth Vader, Star Wars, 1977) - "Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
(Ernest Hemingway) - "Forget them, Wendy. Forget them all. Come with me where you'll never, never have to worry about grown up things again."
(Peter in film adaptation of Peter Pan, 2003)
Pronunciation: im-PER-a-tiv SEN-tens
Also Known As: directive
