In linguistics, a grammatical case in some languages that indicates a temporary state or condition (like 'as' or 'while being').
From Latin esse (to be) plus the case suffix -ive. Used in Finnish, Hungarian, and other Uralic and some other languages to show temporary states.
Finnish has an essive case that English doesn't — so Finnish speakers can grammatically mark 'I work as a teacher' differently from 'I am a teacher,' showing one is temporary and one is identity. English speakers have to use extra words!
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.