1520s, "of or pertaining to grammar," from French grammatical and directly from Late Latin grammaticalis "of a scholar," from grammaticus "pertaining to grammar" (see grammar). Related: Grammatically (c. 1400).
c. 1300, meninge, "sense, that which is intended to be expressed," also "act of remembering" (a sense now obsolete), verbal noun from mean (v.). Sense of "significance, import" is from 1680s.
"grammatical form indicating the function of a verb," 1570s, an alteration of mode (n.1). The grammatical and musical (1590s) usages of it influenced the meaning of mood (n.1) in such phrases as light-hearted mood, but it is worth remembering that the two moods have no etymological relationship. Also used in traditional logic (1560s) as a variant of mode.
mid-15c., originally in the grammatical sense," from Latin coniunctivus "serving to connect," from coniunctus, past participle of coniungere "to join together," from assimilated form of com "with, together" (see con-) + iungere "to join together" (from nasalized form of PIE root *yeug- "to join").
The conjunctive mode (Late Latin coniunctivus modus) is the mode which follows a conditional conjunction or expresses contingency; more commonly it is called subjunctive. Non-grammatical sense of "connecting, uniting, solidifying" is from late 15c. Meaning "closely connected" is from c. 1600. Related: Conjunctively.
"one who or that which qualifies" in any sense, 1560s, agent noun from qualify. Grammatical sense of "a word that qualifies another, modifying or reducing the meaning of a noun, verb, etc." is from 1580s. The Church court office of qualificator is attested from 1680s.
