"Родительный" is a grammatical case in the Russian language, known as the genitive case in English. It is used to indicate possession, origin, or the absence of something. For example, in the phrase "книга Марии" (Maria's book), "Марии" is in the родительный case, showing that the book belongs to Maria. In addition to possession, the родительный case is also used after certain prepositions and in expressions of quantity. For instance, "много яблок" means "a lot of apples," where "яблок" is in the родительный case to express quantity. Understanding this case is essential for proper sentence construction in Russian.