I need the Latin translation for the word "showcase". I should use it in a blog, replacing the English word to indicate a collection of products or things to be shown to all the visitors.
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6Welcome! This question doesn't show research effort, which is something we like to see, particularly in translation questions. See How can I ask a translation or homework question?. Please provide the context in which you use the word, as well as the words you have discovered in your own searches (and why you are unsure about them).– Nathaniel is protestingCommented Mar 26, 2016 at 13:13
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1It might well be that there is no Latin word or short expression for "showcase", but you have to explain it with several words. If that is indeed the case, the best translation probably depends on context. Can you add where you would like to use this expression? (Also, the suggestions @Nathaniel gave are good ones.)– Joonas Ilmavirta ♦Commented Mar 26, 2016 at 14:56
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1 Answer
You have a couple options.
First, more plainly, you have conlectio, which simply means a gathering together. In rhetoric, though, it can also mean a summary of arguments (because a summary is a short collection of what was said before).
You could similarly use conceptus, but instead of the nifty summary definition, you get pregnancy instead. It still can mean simply a collection or gathering together.
You also have conlatio. Like conlectio, it can mean a gathering together of anything, but has the bonus of tending to mean ordered as well, which from there also extends to comparison of things.
I wouldn't go with any of these, but I am giving you them anyway.
To get choicest in that collection, you'll probably want to go with electa or electio. These have the added meaning of a collecting the best or quality selections.
If you want to be extra fancy, you could do what the ancients did when they gathered together the poems and use anthologia (from the Greek for "flower-gathering"), e.g. with the Anthologia Graeca (Greek Anthology) or Anthologia Latina (Latin Anthology), collections of short poems by both major and minor authors.
The Romans sometimes translated anthologia as florilegium, which was the word used during the Medieval age for a collection of excerpted writings.
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Wait—if you wouldn't go with conlectio, conceptus, or conlatus, then what would you suggest if "best selections," extra-fancy, or Medieval wasn't appropriate? Commented Mar 26, 2016 at 20:47
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Ah, of course. I have a very good friend writing a book about display in natural history museums in the 19th century, so I went to a different place. Commented Mar 27, 2016 at 1:35
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Way out of my depth here, but would just throw in thesaurus - treasure, treasury? Commented Mar 27, 2016 at 3:57
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@C.M.Weimer They are now, but, fascinatingly, in the 19th century, especially early on, people basically just threw things in cases with little regard to what they were. It was like, here's a bunch of stuff you can look at, whatever, we don't care. (My friend might very well say that's completely the wrong way to look at it, but that's my impression after reading her work-in-progress.) Commented Mar 27, 2016 at 10:04