All Questions

I would like to know the meaning of 'creative by nature' or 'naturally creative' in latin. According to google translater it is 'natura partum', but when translated back into english it means ...

I'm making a label for my dad's homebrew as a Christmas gift and I'd love to include "Father knows beer best" in Latin as the motto of his company. Could anybody help translate that for me?

"Alēctō" is the name of one of the Furies, made surprisingly famous in the Harry Potter books. It seems to come straightforwardly from Greek a- "not" + lēg- "stop" + -tos "[adjective]", so "...

In a conversation with a fellow Ancient Greek enthusiast, the name "Medusa" (Μέδουσα, "ruling") came up. I made a rather tortured pun by switching the epsilon to an eta, creating μὴ δοῦσα. Now, μή is ...

In Spanish we have the word lunático with the following meaning: One who suffers from madness, not continuous, but at intervals. This word comes from Latin lunatĭcus. According to Lewis & ...

This page on thermopolia reports a quotation from Mary Beard, classics professor at Cambridge University: “The best way to escape a diet of bread, cheese and fruit, eaten in small lodginggs over a ...

According to Wikipedia: Homeric Greek does not have a historical present tense, but rather uses injunctives. Injunctives are replaced by the historical present in the post-Homeric writings of ...

North & Hillard Ex. 213; Q5: the following is to be translated into Latin: "I am willing to send anyone at all to find out what is going on." The answer: "volo quemvis (quemlibet) mittere ...

Background In the TV series Fallet, some of the upper class of the fictional town of Norbacka use the phrase supra se servitium as a sort of salutation. Its meaning is never elaborated upon. My ...

The good people over at latindiscussion have been helping me with a project I'm working on. Now that I'm nearly finished, I would like to double check the results. Take the motto: "propter scientiae ...

In Spanish there is a whole array of phrases of the type: Me importa un comino. where the word "comino" can be replaced by many alternatives (e.g. pito, pepino, bledo, etc). This phrase, in a more ...

(Psalm 4:2) cum invocarem exaudivit me Deus iustitiae meae in tribulatione dilatasti mihi miserere mei et exaudi orationem meam When I called upon him, the God of my justice heard me: when I was ...

I am writing a piece of software that translates programs into programs (a "compiler", in informatics lingo) and my source language allows the programmer to specify Latin numerals. In case the ...

The Lewis & Short dictionary defines gratia as: grātĭa, ae, f. gratus; lit., favor, both that in which one stands with others and that which one shows to others. I. Favor which one finds ...

I was reading a Latin grammar book (Jenney's First Year Latin, for the curious) having recently resolved to learn a bit about the language and what I understood was as follows: Latin is an inflected ...

Looking for a suitable latin translation for the phrase "There is no god above an awakened man" among latin quotes and text examples, I came up with these -obviously imperfect- phrases. Non deus ...

In an answer I posted here, I provided someone else's translation which translated ante tribus as "fifteen years ago". The translation provided in the question also translated tribus the same way: ...

In a comment on this answer, TKR brought up an interesting point of grammar I'd never heard of. Αἴαντε [Ajax-DUAL] is an interesting case. Though readers of Homer since antiquity have interpreted ...

On page 33 of Companion Animals & Us, there is a line: I am in tears, while carrying you to your last resting place as much as I rejoiced when bringing you home in my own hands fifteen years ...

Is there a concise way to phrase "I like the way you think" in Latin? I can find ways to say this, but everything I could think of is a little unwieldy compared to the English. For example, I might ...

A number of Greek names encountered in hexameter follow the syllable length pattern -vv-; consider for example Penelope, Telemachos, Calliope, Terpsichore. The pattern -v-- is absent as the metric ...

Recently, a new international football competition was inaugurated, namely the UEFA Nations League. Being this a European-wide cup, the organisers decided to have the anthem in ... Latin! Certainly a ...

Suppose I'm talking to someone directly, and use a pronoun to refer to someone. I would use tu or vōs with an appropriate case based on its role in the sentence: for example, sciō tē adesse, "I know ...

In the Catholic liturgy at the dismissal, the Latin phrase used is "Ite, missa est." The usual translation for this is "Go, it is the dismissal." My question is, what is the meaning of "Missa est" ...

Can anyone translate for me: "If the minimum wasn't good enough, it wouldn't be the minimum" I had a tutor help me ages ago and thought what she decided was the best translation seemed like it ...

I have only studied the very basics of Greek years ago, so the question might be simple, but I couldn't find a clear summary anywhere. Attic Greek has a dual number alongside singular and plural. When ...

Laelaps was a mythical hunting dog that could always catch its prey. The name comes from Greek λαῖλαψ, "hurricane". But where does this word come from? LSJ doesn't provide an etymology, and ...

I'm seeking a timeline of classic (Greek/Latin) grammarians/grammar books. The timeline could either be a graphical one or a textual listing (like this one for the English language). Most favorable ...

This is a continuation from this question I do not know nearly enough Koine Greek to point out what I am specifically unsure about. That said, I do know enough to see that the Greek and English texts ...

This question is continued here I do not know nearly enough Koine Greek to point out what I am specifically unsure about. That said, I do know enough to see that the Greek and English texts do not ...

Does the present analysis of sentences to "clauses" (subordinate, etc.) has any roots/relatives in the classic grammar books (in Ars grammatica books, etc.)? I would be tankful for any hints or ...

I have heard a number of times that the Romans called the Mediterranean Sea mare nostrum, "our sea". But was this really the Roman name for the Mediterranean Sea in any significant way? I have three ...

I would be glad if anyone could help me how to translate the name "Church of the Virgin Mary" or at least how to place "of the" in the sense of "belonging in patronage" in such contexts? Other ...

I'm curious about what declension θορυβος and κοσμος are in Attic Greek. They appear to be second declension (θορυβος, -ου and κοσμος, -ου), but in the Athenaze workbook (which I'm slowly working my ...

In 1 Samuel 7:16 we read: et ibat per singulos annos circuiens Bethel et Galgala et Masphath, et judicabat Israelem in supradictis locis. The English translation (see link) of supradictis is (the ...

I've seen this quote appear in a few different places, ostensibly from Seneca's Octavia. (Or maybe not Seneca's, we're not sure.) Extinguat et me, ne manu nostra cadat! However, I don't have a ...

I'm trying to read this sentence, where Cicero finds Roman Gods in relevance to the Latin verbs: Saturnus quia se saturat annis, Mavors quia magna vertit, Minerva quia minuit aut quia minatur, ...

As the titles implies, I wish to know how "The word as a weapon" translates into Latin. I think it would be a cool name for a debate club that I'm setting up.

When listening to Gregorian Chant (in Latin), I find very hard to distinguish the words being sung, beyond some trivial regular words or phrases. It might well be said that Gregorian Chant is ...

I understand that a perfect passive finite verb is formed by combining the perfect passive participle with the correct form of 'esse'. My question is this: Does it ever happen that the second ...

When I was researching for this question of mine, I wanted to find nouns similar to missile. I used the L&S on Perseus and searched for all words ending in -ile, but missile was not included. The ...

North & Hillard; Ex. 195: the following is to be translated into Latin: "But, since his men had found no water to drink for many hours, they could not be restrained from rushing into the water, ...

The expression (idiom?) jam nunc appears several times in the Vulgata. So far I've seen two common translations. One is that of "now presently". For instance, Exodus 9:19: (Latin) Mitte ergo jam ...

When answering this question, it occurred to me that I don't know what to call a "boyfriend" or a "girlfriend" in Latin. What would be good words? I assume that the same solution will work for both ...

"Annus mirabilis" is an expression which refers to a wonderful year like 1905 for A. Einstein and modern physics. What would be the equivalent for a single day? Is "dies mirabilis" the correct form? ...

Why did the Ro­mans per­ceive dark­ness, te­ne­brae, as a plu­ral count noun? [Per­se­us cor­pus-search ref­er­ence] Or per­haps the bet­ter ques­tion is: what spe­cial nu­ance is con­veyed by the ...

The adj. formosus can be decomposed as follows: forma + -os-us where forma means ‘shape, form’ and -os- ‘with abundance’. However, when the two notions come together, the whole, which literally ...

In English, " 's " often denotes the possessive meaning, while "of" more of a genitive tone, e.g., compare "John's photo" and "a photo of John". However, I have not found anything similar in Latin, ...

I stumbled upon this exchange so I hope you can help me. I'm writing a book of poetry, and I wanted to title it Starlight, but why use English, am I right? So I made the rookie error with Google ...

In Spanish we have two suffixes -al and -ar with the same meaning: "after a noun it indicates an abundance of the original word". So from naranjo ('orange tree') we have naranjal ('a group of orange ...