commissive

adjective

com·​mis·​sive kə-ˈmi-siv 

: constituting a statement that commits the speaker to some future action : expressive of commitment

Among the various commissive illocutions, a promise is the strongest mode of commitment that one can make. Here, too, it would be more usual for a commissive utterance to be expressed implicitly: "I will sell you my car for $2500," "I will not drink when driving."

—Sanford Schane, in The Oxford Handbook of Language and Law, 2012

commissive noun

plural commissives

Commissives are basically promises to do something or commitments of some sort: for example, "I'll bring the beer."

—Roy D'Andrade, American Anthropologist, March 2002

Word History

First Known Use

1963, in the meaning defined above

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