ablative absolute

noun

, Latin Grammar.

1. a construction not dependent upon any other part of the sentence, consisting of a noun and a participle, noun and adjective, or two nouns, in which both members are in the ablative case, as Latin viā factā, “the road having been made.”

ablative absolute

noun

1. an absolute construction in Latin grammar in which a governor noun and a modifier in the ablative case function as a sentence modifier; for example, hostibus victis, "the enemy having been beaten"

Word History and Origins

Origin of ablative absolute¹

First recorded in 1520–30

Example Sentences

“I liked the ablative absolute, the way it could wrap up entire epochs in two words, then move on,” she writes.

From The New Yorker

“It felt rather like a no-fault divorce from the main sentence, rather like mine from my second husband, whom I now refer to as my own Ablative Absolute.”

From The New Yorker

Ann Patty’s adventures in Latin include nothing quite so antic, though there is a moment when, in Rome—which she is visiting with some fellow-Latinists for the first time since being there on her honeymoon with the Ablative Absolute—she paddles her feet in a lake once sacred to Diana, quoting the appropriate lines from Ovid as she does so.

From The New Yorker

She was taken with “the way it could wrap up entire epochs in two words, then move on: It felt like a no-fault divorce from the main sentence, rather like mine from my second husband, whom I now refer to as my own Ablative Absolute.”

From Washington Post

You can also   In 1933, midsummer,             vexed by the ablative absolute,          she looks toward the camera,             behind her the dark oak wainscot of the library reading room,             two old maids standing at her side.

From Slate