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I am trying to translate the phrase "of the gods" into Latin. Google translate says it would be deorum, however I am skeptical of the accuracy of Google translate, other sources say it is correct, then others say its not even a word in Latin. Any help would be much appreciated.

Also if deorum is correct what is the etymology of the word.

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    What are the genders of those gods? All male, all female, or mixed?
    – Joonas Ilmavirta
    Commented Oct 8, 2023 at 16:29
  • I'm sorry for the late response, what would the difference be in each of the three cases? Commented Oct 28, 2023 at 23:29
  • I wrote up an answer to address that.
    – Joonas Ilmavirta
    Commented Nov 1, 2023 at 7:27

3 Answers 3

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It is correct. "Deorum" is the genitive plural of "Deus" meaning "God". The stem of "Deus" is "Deo", and the gentive plural suffix is "-rum".

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  • Thank you for the help, I appricate it Commented Oct 8, 2023 at 17:11
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The answer depends on the genders of the gods. Latin has three grammatical genders — masculine, feminine, and neuter — and some words have different forms for different genders.

If the group of gods is all male or a mixed group of men and women, then you need the masculine form deorum.

If the group of gods is all female (goddesses rather than gods if you will), then you need the feminine form dearum.

There are several possible words for a god(dess), including deus/dea, divus/diva, numen, caeles, caelestis. To get an idea of their differences and nuances, I recommend taking a look at any of the many online Latin dictionaries and asking a question on this site if more clarification is needed. The most standard choice would indeed be deus/dea (whose plural genitives I gave above), but depending on context you might want something else.

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One other way is simply deum, which you can see in formulaic phrases like deum hominumque.

You can also find the archaic spellings divom/divum, such as in Vergil's ast ego, quae divom incedo regina.

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