All Questions

What does this mean? "Plantarunt vivi divino lumine coelos. Coelos nunc habitant. Ossa favilla fovet." It's from a 1683 epitaph for two Danish priests.

In Carmina 1, poem 5, Horace writes about an untrustworthy and seducing lady. He ends the poem in: (...) Me tabula sacer votiva paries indicat uvida suspendisse potenti vestimenta maris deo. ...

I've looked around some forums and the translation I've got so far is: Ne Obliviscaris, Semper Commemoras I'm still not sure if this is correct. The context of the phrase that I wish to get the ...

Inspired by a recent meta question, which I had to write in English for lack of appropriate Latin vocabulary: A "sockpuppet", on the internet, is an alternate identity someone creates for nefarious ...

I am looking for more or less the 'proper' (or any good approximation) way to translate a "Traveler's Writ," as in a certificate or license given to a traveler that allows him legal access to an area. ...

What is the meaning of the obscure verb belgicare or belgico? Background Notker Balbulus of St. Gall (c. 840 to 912) writes this verb in a letter/epistle to a certain Lantbert, wherein Notker ...

Is there any diachronic reason whereby synthetic perfective passive forms like *amavitur (and similar ones) are not possible and analytic forms like amatus est (and similar ones) are selected instead? ...

I want to say 'the City of God is established by the existence of (aggresive) pagans. What would be the grammatical and elegant (in the style of St. Augustine) way of saying this in Latin? I am ...

Oscan was an Italic language related to Latin, which died out somewhere in the early centuries CE. It's notable for being used in the Fabulae Atellanae and for being the source of various loans into ...

Does Latin "pingo" to paint relate to "pix" tar by analogy with "pango" to agree and "pax" peace?

As a scientist, I frequently find myself submitting a manuscript to a journal for peer review and hopefully publication. What would be a good Latin verb for this sense of "submit"? It could also be a ...

It is a well known fact of Latin grammar, that trees follow natural gender and are always feminine, even when the word form would suggest masculine gender, as in populus "poplar". What does motivate ...

Does "aurea" have the second meaning? http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=aurea&la=la#lexicon aurea doesn't mean "the bridle of a horse" in the following context in my opinion: "...

In Sixto-Clementine Vulgate we find in Genesis this verse: poenituit eum quod hominum fecisset in terra (Genesis 6:6) "hominum" is in the genetive case which I find strange. I try searching for ...

Phrase 1 : Life is in the doing. Phrase 2 : The wood belongs to the families who have their roots in it.

When people are adding macrons to text, how do they know where the macrons should be? Is there a list somewhere? e.g. insula -> īnsula or īnsulā maxima -> maxima or māxima etc. I'd like to ...

How can I translate "for those I love I will sacrifice" to Latin? I got several different answers from different sources: prō meīs nihil nōn patiar prō dīlēctīs nihil nōn patiar Iillis quos amo ...

In Latin, it is thought (as far as I know) that within a single word, /ns/ and /nf/ were always preceded by a long vowel. This is a somewhat complicated result of a hypothesized sound change in words ...

There's a passage I've seen quoted in several books on self-help and spiritualism: Look what the goddess does when she is sad: she takes up a tambourine, made of taut skin and rimmed with castanets ...

If Ad Astra means to the stars, and Atlas means a collection of maps, would Atlas Ad Astra convey the meaning that a collection of map? If not, what is the grammatical way of saying it?

A while ago, I wrote an answer summarizing my understanding of the rule that a vowel is long in Classical Latin before ns or nf. As far as I know, this rule applied very regularly. But I'm not sure ...

In English, it's common for words to be clipped down to their first couple syllables: "brother" becomes "bro", "university" becomes "uni", "doctor" becomes "doc", "veteran" becomes "vet", and so on. ...

I am trying to tease out the etymological difference between "intend" and "attend." Both "in" or "en" as a Latin prefix and "ad" translate as "toward". So the etymological sense of both words is "to ...

In Spanish we have the word mano for hermano ("brother"), and that form can give the diminutive manito, when the brother is very small (less than one). In Latin, like in Italian, it might be possible ...

I'm new to Latin (in the first semester), and recently found myself tripped up when reading a text from another student in my class, which was: ille liber mihi nunc bonum est Whether it was lack ...

The first standard latin script which consisted of both majuscule and minuscule letters (lowercase and uppercase, or small and capital letters) in one word is Carolingian minuscule. It is a fact. But ...

While interested in the etymology of 'recalcitrant', most sources, namely OED, M-W, etymonline) give something like the following: 1823, from French récalcitrant, literally "kicking back" (17c.-...

In galileo's dialog of two chief world systems he reffer to an axiom "eandem esse rationem totius et partium" I can't quite make out what that means, and nor can i find the axiom anywhere else, ...

I still remember quod erat demonstrandum, but ...that which was to have been made (actually generated)? How would I best say that? I am thinking quod erat factum, but am unsure.

Is anyone able to link me to a IPA vowel chart for classical Latin? Also, any other useful IPA resources for learning classical pronunciation of Latin that could be recommended is most appreciated.

By the power of modern linguistics, quite a lot is known about the early history of Latin: for quite a while it coexisted with close relatives like Oscan, Umbrian, and Faliscan, as well as the ...

What is the correct translation for "The story is not over"? "Story" here refers to the metaphorical story of our lives (so rather fabula than historia). "Not over" means that's not completed and that ...

In Ethics, De Dei, Proposition 11, Second demonstration we read: Cujuscunque rei assignari debet causa seu ratio tam cur existit quam cur non existit cujuscunque rei is genitive, but ...

In an exam a teacher has put the following example to fill in the gap: Amici Rufi ____ noscebant. According to the docent, if the right word has been selected, the translation in English should be:...

I found the following definition of "nostrum" online: A secret elixir, ingredients being secret and only known by the Maker, and it is a cure-all to mankind. I want to discover the true meaning of ...

According to the Wikipedia page of the Socratic paradox 'I know that I know nothing', Latin version of the same is — 'Scio me nescire' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_that_I_know_nothing). ...

I'm a novice trying to learn Latin, and I hope this question is appropriate to this forum (please let me know if it is not the case). I tried to read this section from De Brevitate Vitae (text here):...

I have the following sentence from Seneca, epistula 1, §2: "Cum placuerit fieri, toto illum pectore admitte; tam audaciter cum illo loquere quam tecum." However, I'm not sure what the "tam audaciter ...

Could someone help me translate "Do it for her" into Latin? Context: The "it" refers to keep working, fighting, striving, while "her" actually refers to two persons; sometimes individually (so I'd ...

I know that the Romans appreciated wordplay. But there's a rare and specific type of pun that I'm curious about now: a pun based on words sounding similar between languages. For example: Have you ...

In Spinoza's Ethics we see: nihil in natura clarius quam quod unumquodque ens sub aliquo attributo debeat concipi I know meaning of the sentence. My question is about debeat. Why is this verb ...

I'm looking for any pair of texts (Ancient Greek, Latin), meeting the following criteria: Both texts may be very brief. The Latin text should be a translation very close to the Greek text. The Greek ...

This question quotes an alchemical text by Sendivogius, which mentions the Tinctura Physica as equivalent to the Lapis Philosophorum, i.e. the Philosopher's Stone. But what exactly was the Tinctura ...

I am reading Novuum Lumen Chemicum with the help of Waite’s English translation. (https://www.sacred-texts.com/alc/hm2/hm204.htm) The following passage I cannot understand clearly. It seems that Waite ...

To the Romans, if I understand right, the word caelum "sky" incorporated everything above the earth: the atmosphere, the space beyond it, and even the thrones of the gods. But nowadays we divide ...

Can somebody please tell me if my translation for the sentence: "It seems that the slave is carrying a letter." is correct? Videtur servus epistulam portare. videtur - 3rd person present passive ...

I'm trying to find how to say "Putting many ducks into space" in the most proper way, but I have very little experience in Latin and so the different forms of words are somewhat confusing to me. What ...

North & Hillard p.157: Footnote (1): "Moreover in Impossible Conditions, if the verb of the apodosis is possum, debeo, oportet, or a gerundive (or any verb expressing obligation or possibility), ...

Why is the Latin phrase: horror vacui commonly interpreted as: nature abhors a vacuum? It may well be Aristotle's intended message, given the context, but it seems like a bit of a jump. Doesn't it? ...

Is there a semantic difference between "Etiam si omnes, ego non" and "Et si omnes ego non"? I know Latin is loose when it comes to word order, and it seems to me the answer is no, but the way this ...