"Dative" comes from Latin cāsus datīvus ("case for giving"), a translation of Greek δοτικὴ πτῶσις, dotikē ptôsis ("inflection for giving"). Dionysius Thrax in his Art of Grammar also refers to it as epistaltikḗ "for sending (a letter)", … See more

In general, the dative (German: Dativ) is used to mark the indirect object of a German sentence. For example:
• Ich schickte dem Mann(e) das Buch. (literally: I sent "to the man" the book.) – Masculine
• Ich gab der Frau den Stift zurück. (literally: I … See more

Ancient
In addition to its main function as the dativus, the dative case has other functions in Classical Greek: (The chart below uses the Latin names for the types of dative; the Greek name for the dative is δοτική πτῶσις, like … See more

The Old English language had a dative case; however, the English case system gradually fell into disuse during the Middle English period, when the accusative and dative of pronouns merged into a single oblique case that was also used with all prepositions. This … See more

There are several uses for the dative case (Dativus):
• Dativus finalis (dative of purpose), e.g. non scholae sed vitae – "[we learn] not for school, but for life", auxilio vocare – "to call for help", venio auxilio – "I'm coming for help", accipio dono … See more

In Russian, the dative case is used for indicating the indirect object of an action (that to which something is given, thrown, read, etc.). In the instance where a person is the goal of … See more

Both Lithuanian and Latvian have a distinct dative case in the system of nominal declensions.
Lithuanian nouns … See more