All Questions

Working my way through the Duolingo course, I noticed that salsus has a short root vowel, even though sāl, sālis¹ is long-voweled. The etymology entry on Wiktionary states that the adjective is from ...

I often consult a website called Thesaurus Musicarum Latinarum of Latin writings on music theory and practice. Note that the web address changes every couple of years. Why "musicarum latinarum&...

So I've come across this word βῡκάνη, ostensibly borrowed from Latin būcina ('an ox-horn trumpet'), from bou- ('ox') + canere ('to sing'). The lack of vowel reduction is immediately striking; ...

In a comment on an answer to making an adjective from a noun, Joonas mentions that this is not a trivial matter and gives a solution to making an adjective out of chicken for an approximate ...

I have a musical project I've been working on called Instruments of Ruin (it's instrumental, so the name is a play on that). I want to make shirts for it that have the phrase, "I listened to ...

I apologize if there's an obvious answer here I'm missing, but I can't figure out why this line from De Bello Gallico 5.33 is subjunctive: "At Cotta, qui cogitasset haec posse in itinere accidere ...

According to A&G, the ablative supine with verbs is "extremely rare" and even the example given: pudet dictu is somewhat not regular since pudet is impersonal (as if it is almost an ...

How do you say that you have been vaccinated in Latin? I'm not sure how to construct this tense, and I'm not familiar with a modern Latin verb for "vaccinate".

Now cross-posted to Graphic Design SE, as per the discussion in chat. In the question ‘What is the difference between the accent on q and the accent on semicolon?’, Joonas Ilmavirta suggested I ask a ...

I need some help with the grammar here, I'm interested in learning Latin so I have been lurking around here for a bit, but I haven't really started, yet. (Well, I have had a couple of false starts). I ...

If I want to negate two things, can I combine them with -que? For example, if I want to say "I don't have a cat or a dog", can I say non habeo felem canemque? Or should it rather be non ...

Unlike most constellations, Lupus isn't named after a specific character in mythology. It used to be a dog or beast, but eventually it was given the Latin name Lupus. I'm not really sure how gender ...

The chorus in the Bee-Gees' haunting song, "Don't Forget to Remember Me" (1969), includes: "Don't forget to remember me, And a love that used to be" THE FIRST LINE To translate ...

I think the phrase plebs together strong is a cool one in English, but I'd like to translate it to Latin. In this context, I take pleb to mean a commoner, an ordinary person and the essence of the ...

How did the meaning of stipulari (to extract a promise) develop from stipula (a stalk), if indeed it did?

I am looking for a Latin word corresponding to the common modern English sense of the word "genius", a person with extraordinary ability in a specific field. I do not want to refer to the ...

Do you know the book that describes the origin of grammatical terms, gives their definition, explains why they are called the way they are etc. (e. g. what is "conjugation", why do we call ...

I wonder what Latin word or expression best describes a polymath, someone who masters several subjects. The two solutions I thought of are the following but I find them unsatisfactory. polymathēs, -...

How do you say "under an angel's wing" in Latin? Should it be sub ala angelus or sub ala angeli? A friend of mine has a tattoo (using the 1st option), and she's afraid it's not correct.

Inflation bedevils capitalist economies. Despite the power of Rome, the low-wage slave-economy, and a single currency (quite an achievement), the Roman World suffered from inflation. This happened ...

A while ago I asked about a translation for "star age" to ancient Greek. I ended up with the wording: Astereaon. I am now curious as to what the translation would be for something like: &...

One of our users recently became a father and of course congratulations are in order. How did the Romans do that? More specifically, are there any attested congratulations to a new father in the ...

I want to know the percentages of loanwords in Classical Latin (maybe including Old Latin but NOT post-classical Latin), including native terms and words, for example: 90% Native 7% Greek 1% Etruscan ?...

Populi! I try to find a word in Latin which couriers this specific sense: right, just, the very; and still found nothing. I mean that I can find it in many another languages: right here, just behind, ...

Suppose one of the four batches of amphorae produced yesterday at my pottery is discovered to be deficient and has to be thrown away instead of being sold. What should I call such a "bad batch&...

What would be some ways to say "next star", "the next star" or something very similar in Latin? By next I mean next as in "the next star to visit/conquer/study", not &...

I am guessing jens since j was the most common heading alphabet for replacing i as a first letter. Addendum for clarity: One of New Latin's nominations was the adjustment to spelling of certain words, ...

In Cap. X of LLPSI, Ørberg introduces the verb cano, having introduced canto in a previous chapter. The usage of both so far is just sing, but are there more nuanced differences between the two? From ...

I would like say in latin "Don't forget to forgive". It would be like a declarative/recommendation statement.

How does one say "black market" in Latin? According to the OED, this word first originated in English in 1727.

If you wanted to say that anything is possible in Latin, how would you do it? One possibility I thought of was something like: Omne posse I'm not sure that omne quite captures the nuance of anything ...

In Gen. 1:26 by Sebastian Castellio: ita fatur: Faciamus hominem ad imaginem nostram, nostri similem, qui dominetur piscibus aquatilibus, volucribus aereis, pecudibus, denique toti terrae, et ...

Is Greek ἀρά, prayer, cognate with Latin ara, altar? Wiktionary had ἀράομαι, with the etymology pointing to a red-linked ἀρά. I created an entry for ἀρά based on LSJ, but I have no source of ...

I was wondering about the logic of the usage of the verb utor in gerundive constructions. The following relevant quote is from Woodcock's (1959: 164) A New Latin Syntax: "one can say ad hanc rem ...

Our site has its first election now and the voting period starts in 12 hours. Therefore it is a good moment to figure out some of the election vocabulary in Latin. What would be a good Latin word for ...

In this recent question we looked at the following sentence from the apostolic constitution Provida Mater Ecclesia: § 2. Instituta, salvis communibus iuris canonici normis quae ipsa respiciant, ...

I translated "I would have done it, but turned and forgot" via google translate, hoping that phrasing would be end up with a more idiomatic latin phrase. Otherwise, how do I convey the ...

What would this latin sentence mean : "Prout necessitas ferat atque experientia suffragetur" ? No idea... Note: found in this link

The infamous and long-discredited legal defence: "I was only obeying orders.", has become almost the traditional excuse for cowardice & brutality. Of the legal (There is a higher moral ...

Is "Te id dicente id non fit." good Latin for "You saying so does not make it so."? There are a couple of things I am not sure about it. When the participle is in ablative ("...

In Cap. X of LLPSI, Ørberg introduces these three sentences: Cum avis volat, alae moventur. Cum homo ambulat, pedes moventur. Cum piscis natat, cauda movetur. While I understand the general meaning ...

In Matthew 27, why does the Vulgate call the graves of people who were resurrected along with Jesus "monumentum", but Jesus's grave "sepulchrum"? Matthew 27:53 says, in Vulgate: ...

I read in Keats' Hyperion: [...] No, by Tellus and her briny robes! (Hyperion, 246) Tellus is a Latin goddess, her Greek counterpart being Gaia. I am looking for the Greek or Latin source of the ...

For instance, the verb ἐλευθερῶ augments to ἠλευθέρουν in the past, whereas the verb ἔχω augments to εἶχον (not ἦχον as might have been predicted).

I was reading the following thread https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/tradent.3819293/ - There it is stated that the English word tradent, according to the OED means Chiefly in Rabbinic Jewish ...

How does one say the adverbial phrase "in a certain respect" or "in certain respects" in Latin? For example, would whatever under a certain condition is such-and-such, is such-and-...

I want to translate I will cast my shadow into Latin. This phrase is inspired from a poem by Horace, that has the line: Pulvis et Umbra Sumus My interpretation of this is that we are simply our ...

There is a 2018 thesis by Alexandra Kozak, "Le Dictionnaire des hapax dans la poésie grecque archaïque, d'Homère à Eschyle," freely downloadable from https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-...

I know "flevit" means "wept" and "amare" means "to love", but the Greek text is "ἔκλαυσεν πικρῶς", which means "wept bitterly". If I parse ...

In the Vulgate, Gen 8:1, we have Recordatus autem Deus Noë, cunctorumque animantium, et omnium jumentorum, quæ erant cum eo in arca, adduxit spiritum super terram, et immunitæ sunt aquæ. I would ...