1 formal Serving to persuade.
- Character is one of the most important instructive and suasive devices in literature, Fowler points out.
- In contrast, presidents' inaugural addresses have been described as suasive messages that are crafted to showcase the newly elected president as a national leader.
- The inaugural address is regarded as an essentially suasive speech in which the president may articulate his vision of what the nation can and should be.
1.1 Grammar Denoting a class of English verbs, for example insist, whose meaning includes the notion of persuading and which take a subordinate clause whose verb may either be in the subjunctive or take a modal.
- Suasive verbs imply intentions to bring about some change in the future (eg, command, stipulate).
- Both public and private verbs are interesting in the present analysis; by contrast, suasive verbs are too rare to deserve special attention.
Definition of suasive in:
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