Definition of "vocative" []

• Relating to, characteristic of, or used in calling. (adjective)
• Of, relating to, or being a grammatical case in certain inflected languages to indicate the person or thing being addressed. (adjective)
• The vocative case. (noun)
• A word or form in the vocative case. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "So now, all you lucky people whose names I ordered worked into a rather longish piece of boilerplate latin vocative verse can now share in the tranquil blessings of soft breezes in forested glades, mostly free of singing shrapnel and the deep digestive grunt of artillery."
• "The inaugural "O" is only confirmed as vocative, that is, when the first junctural lurch of "O W" is rounded out by the equally opened-mouthed apposition that results in the line's coming phonetic increment, "thou (w) breath of autumn's being.""
• "For Rosenstock-Huessy, the vocative is the condition of dialogue and hence the real condition of a new truth."