- of, relating to, characterized by, or serving to: circulatory, exploratory, migratory, explanatory
WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2026
-atory,
- a combination of -ate 1 and -ory 1 or -ory 2, used infrequently as an independent suffix with the same senses as -ory 1 and -ory 2 : affirmatory;
observatory.
- Latin -ātōrius, -a, -um, origin, originally the termination of adjectives formed with -tōrius (see -tory1, tory2) and verbs whose stems ended in -ā-; reanalyzed in English in the same way as -ator
Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::
-atory suffix forming adjectives
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'-atory' also found in these entries (note: many are not synonyms or translations):
Arecibo Observatory
- Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory
- Crimean Astrophysical Observatory
- declaratory judgment
- Greenwich Observatory
- High Energy Astrophysical Observatory
- informatory double
- Kitt Peak National Observatory
- Lick Observatory
- Lowell Observatory
- Mauna Kea Observatory
- Mount Wilson Observatory
- National Radio Astronomy Observatory
- Naval Observatory
- Orbiting Astronomical Observatory
- Orbiting Geophysical Observatory
- Orbiting Solar Observatory
- Palomar Observatory
- predacious
- preparatory school
- rafferty
- Royal Greenwich Observatory
- Yerkes Observatory
- Special Astrophysical Observatory
