In linguistics, abessive (abbreviated ABESS, from Latin abesse "to be distant"), caritive and privative (abbreviated PRIV) are names for a grammatical case expressing the lack or absence of the marked noun. In English, the corresponding function's expressed by the preposition or by the suffix . The name abessive's derived from Latin abesse "to be away/absent," and's especially used in reference to Finno-Ugric languages. The name caritive's derived from Latin carere "to lack", and's especially us… (More on Abessive)