All Questions

In my Sanskrit dictionary, the Latin phrase metri causa ("for the sake of the metre") is used to alert the reader to forms which may be used irregularly in order to fit the metre. For example, in the ...

I have noticed that appear reduces to a Latin parere appear (v.) Look up appear at Dictionary.com late 13c., "to come into view," from stem of Old French aparoir (12c., Modern French apparoir) "...

My secondary (middle and high) school has a trophy awarded to the most decorated sportsperson at sports day. From my vague memories, the trophy, and its subsequent winner, are called the Victor ...

The phrase "that can be arranged" can be useful, and I would like to know an idiomatic way to put it in Latin. This phrase could be a response to "can we meet tomorrow at ten?", "I'd like to eat ...

The book is Panoplia Clericalis, and the passage I'm having difficulty with (which I suspect is much easier than I think) is, from page 602: De colorum mixtione, qui differunt, ex varia eorum ...

Although there are numerous conventions that appear to be followed when borrowing words from Greek to English, an especially noticeable one is the change made to the endings of 2nd declension nouns, ...

The Latin preposition de takes an ablative object and has several different translations including 'about', 'of', 'down from' and 'from'. The preposition a/ab also has multiple meanings including '...

In scansion, a vowel is long by position if there are two or more consonants between it and the next vowel. Can a vowel be long by position if it ends a line and there is no next vowel? E.g. is the "...

In Cicero In Verrem, II, iv, 4, unum Cupidinis marmoreum Praxiteli; nimirum didici etiam, dum in istum inquiro, artificum nomina. idem, opinor, artifex eiusdem modi Cupidinem fecit illum qui est ...

In an excerpt from Livy XXI, Lingua Latina per se illustrata has this: . . . Haud ferme plures Saguntini cadebant quam Pœni. Ut vero Hannibal ipse, dum murum incautius subit, tragula graviter ictus ...

From this answer and Allen & Greenough §493, I understand that Latin does not have a perfect active participle. But on Wiktionary, I see the following usage note in the entry on the suffix -vus: ...

Every beginning Latin-learner is familiar with the idea of deponent verbs: verbs that have passive forms but active meanings. I am curious about a small subset of Latin verbs that aren't just ...

The academic year at the University Cambridge consists of three terms: Michaelmas, Lent and Easter. For more details, consult the term date pages of the university. What are these terms called in ...

A macron is a diacritical mark, which, in modern Latin texts, is sometimes used to mark a long vowel: ā, ē, ī, ō, ū, ȳ. From Roman uses of diacritical marks, I understand that the ancient Romans did ...

When, if ever, did the adjectives negativus and positivus evolve into an antonym pair like the English "negative" and "positive", and how did positivus get this meaning? Deriving negativus from the ...

Page 18 of "Prosodic Phrasing in Adolescents with High-Functioning Autism" by Jessica Mayo, a doctoral dissertation that has nothing to do with Latin (but watch for the relevance, it's coming), ...

The regular ablative of nox is nocte. At least in the temporal sense noctu is a synonym of nocte. Are nocte and noctu fully interchangeable as temporal expressions? In particular, can I attach ...

What is a Latin phrase similar to "annus horribilis" meaning a year of change, as in a year where everything changes? For example - a year in which I moved across the country, totally changed job etc ...

For instance, if you say, "I came here to eat," or "We want something good to eat," you are using the infinitive "to eat" to express reason or purpose. How do translate something like this in Latin?

Pro and prae are somewhat similar in meaning and form. De Vaan isn't clear about whether they are related; he mentions Proto-Indo-European roots *proH or *pro, and *pre-h2i, respectively. Could it be ...

They are the words to the hauntingly beautiful title song in Roger Eno's "Lost in Translation" CD ca. 1995: Discontentus Sentimentum Listigatus Exocentum Either maybe it's a joke (and the words ...

Acronyms are abbreviations that are read as whole words rather than letter by letter — or in other words, they are words formed from initials of a phrase. "NATO" and "laser" are two examples. I ...

When do I use the gerundive vs. participle forms of a verb in Latin?

I am interested in finding out if any Latin enthusiasts speak Latin to their children, so that the children grow up with Latin as one of their native languages. If yes, can any description of their ...

The (masculine) plural genitive of both the participle victus and the derived noun victor is victorum. If I write, for example, uxores victorum infelices erant, it is unclear which wives were unhappy. ...

I have totally no clue about Latin language, but I need translation for the title to my music project. The answer is not "Magnum Opus Dei". I would like to know what's in Latin: Polish - Wielkie ...

In Allen & Greenough, §34, I see a short discussion on the gender of animal names: Many nouns may be either masculine or feminine, according to the sex of the object. These are said to be of ...

In Róma Æterna, the second volume of Ørberg's Lingua Latína per sé illustráta, in a chapter adapted from Eutropius I.9–III.6, on page 181 we find the following sentences: Verum dignitás ...

In the phrase Soli Deo gloria one can read soli in two different ways: If it is solus, the phrase means "glory only to the God" or "glory to the only God". If it is sol, the phrase means "glory to ...

I'm thinking that a houseguest who stays on your couch should be something like hospes lectuli. But that sounds more like a guest invited by your couch, which is silly. In my non-expert understanding ...

The First Council of Braga was a meeting of eight bishops that took place around AD 560. They produced a number of decrees, one of which relates to the type of songs that could be sung in church. ...

What would be an idiomatic Latin way to refer to reserve military? I mean troops that have previously served and have returned to civilian life but can be called back on duty. I would much prefer ...

A friend of mine is completing a small statue of the Virgin Mary under the new title of Our Lady, Turner of Hearts. As it turns out, he would like to put the inscription of "Our Lady, Turner of Hearts,...

"Mens" means mind, and "Mensa" is the club for geniuses. I follow so far. But "mensa" also means "table." How would that relate to the meaning in the previous paragraph? Does a table have a ...

The noun Bonum ("a good thing") seems to have taken on a life of its own as a distinct word in Latin usage. In derivation and meaning, is this simply a neuter substantive of the adjective Bonus ("...

The pronouns quicumque, quilibet, quisquis and quivis have a somewhat similar meaning, roughly "anyone". What exactly are their differences? The dictionary entries I have seen do not provide a clear ...

I was recently reading a work where I became (re)acquainted with the fact that the middle finger can be referred to as the digitus impudicus -- the "shameful finger" -- in Latin. My question is ...

Historically, has there ever been a "Latin Sign Language"? Perhaps the Romans developed one, or maybe the Catholic Church did so at some point? Perhaps suggesting "no," Wikipedia's list doesn't seem ...

I am translating a medical text from the late 16th century. The author is Swiss. The text uses the ß character (like the German eszett). Example: toti amplißimo conseßui Is this character being ...

What are the Latin root words for the English words "imperative" and "declarative"? What are their respective meanings?

In the following clause the agent is in the accusative, not ablative. Why? quod Civitas Aquilegensis et oppida Sancti Viti A. et Sancti Danielis in dicta patria consistentia cum omnibus eorum ...

Scientists up until the mid-19th century (e.g., Gauss) would frequently write scientific works in Latin. What sort of Latin would it be considered? Would Gauss's writings, for example, be considered ...

What is the difference between ac (or atque) and et? And how do I know when to use atque instead of just ac? It seems that ac "binds more tightly" than et. Is this true? Or is the difference between ...

In contemporary spoken Latin, such as (I think) occurs among canon lawyers in the Vatican and at Latin-only conventicula, do people clearly lengthen the -ā at the end of first-declension nouns in the ...

Occasionally while reading, I've mistaken a first-declension ablative for a nominative, or vice versa,* and gotten confused for a moment until I sorted it out. Both appear the same in writing, of ...

Is there a difference in meaning between argumentum ad and argumentum a? Does the latter even have authoritative usage in Latin?* Here are some samples that I've found, not always from authoritative ...

I learned in a recent question that derived nouns like figura, statura and cultura do not always look like the future participle but are actually formed from a different stem. Examples of differences: ...

Although these two words are obviously closely related (I believe tunc = tum + ce), I would like to know whether they are usually interchangeable and the meaning differences that exist between them. ...

Suppose I want to say: It can happen that my horse dies. I do not want to say "my horse can die", but I want to keep this structure where the thing that happens is in a subordinate clause. ...

Why is the ending of Mediolanensis in Archiepiscopus Mediolanensis and Archidioecesis Mediolanensis the same even though the former noun is male and the latter female?