All Questions

The Lewis Elementary Latin Dictionary (via latinlexicon.org) gives the following definitions: quidem [expressing emphasis or assurance] assuredly, certainly, in fact, indeed [in answers] certainly, ...

I was reading this encyclopedia entry on Roman naming, and it discusses the naming of Roman slaves. Originally, slave's name was the name of his master + "puer". During the age of the Roman Republic, ...

Starting from a Bart Simpson prank call, I looked for "urinator" in Wiktionary, and suddenly found myself faced with the Latin meaning of the word, that is, ūrīnātor meaning "diver"...

Latin has, depending on who you ask, 6 or 7 cases. The 7th case is the locative – the Cambridge Latin Course (which I study) does not have it, rather it just lists words like 'domi' as 'at home' – not ...

The word rem seems to mean all sorts of things depending on the context — sometimes it means "the thing", sometimes "it", and sometimes rem can be entirely omitted from the English translation. ...

The present infinitive is sometimes used as a predicate in a past tense sentence. The use context is similar to praesens historicum. My grammar gives two examples: Nihil Galli respondere, sed in ...

I've seen both, so obviously both were used, but are there circumstances that determine which option to use? Or is it something that changed over time?

In my genealogical research in England I have come across many different spellings of the name William in Latin documents: Gulielmus, Guglielmus, Wilhelmus, Willelmus, to name just a few. I know that ...

The question of how to express my username, Undo, in Latin recently came up in chat. As Ben Kovitz notes, Latin seems to lack the word 'defacio' or similar. How can I say my name, the verb "undo", in ...

Quando vocabulum a fortiori (sive a fortiore) ortum est ut nomen artis legis logicæve? In quo opere scripto primum apparuit? Volo intellegere eius rationem originis verificareque verbum elisum "...

Referring to progressively more distance ancestors, I would list my Pater (father) Avus (grandfather) After this point, it gets a bit shaky. This, for example, gives past ancestors as Proavus (...

Quid suffixum -amen significat, ut foramen, putamen, calceamen, regimen, æquamen, vocamen, etc.? -amen suffixo in dictionariis interretialibus non invenio, neque perspicuam significationem communem ...

I'd like to say "Happy Birthday [to you]!" in Latin. I see two possibilities in Traupman's Conversational Latin: Fēlīx nātālis tibi! Fēlīcem nātālem [tibi exoptō]! The first is used in ...

It's sometimes difficult to convey some meaning in such an old language as Latin. I have trouble with the word interesting. I've heard someone say iucundus in this meaning, but it's not an accurate ...

There are many words, which are translated as quick. My initial search showed celer: swift , quick, rapid; in a bad sense, hasty, rash celox: swift , quick; f. as subst. a swift vessel, yacht citus: ...

In Latin we have the ablative case. Its common uses can be described as instrumental and locative (ablativus loci). But in Slavonic languages we have a distinct locative case. Did the instrumental ...

There are many different words for colours in Latin, but it's not easy to tell what kind of colour was exactly meant by each word. Do we know what different colour words meant? In particular, is there ...

Emperor Claudius introduced three additional letters to the Latin alphabet: Ⅎ, Ↄ, and Ⱶ. What are some examples of the words in which these letters were used?

I'm aware of some of the differences in pronunciation between the two, and perhaps this can be covered in greater detail elsewhere, but are there also any other key areas of differences (with perhaps ...

The first sentence of Hyginus' Prometheus is: Hominés anteá ab immortálibus ignem petébant neque in perpetuum serváre sciébant; quod posteá Prometheus in ferulá détulit in terrás, hominibusque ...

One of my favorite Latin words is Tollere because it means both "to raise" as in to lift off the ground, as well as (more poetically) "to raze" or destroy/take away. Are there any commentaries on how ...

Wikipaedia says this: In dactylic hexameter, a caesura occurs any time the ending of a word does not coincide with the beginning or the end of a metrical foot; in modern prosody, however, it is ...

Synizesis is the rare phenomenon where two vowels within a word that normally do not form a diphthong are nevertheless pronounced as such, and hence count as a single syllable in the metre. Under ...

While transcribing entries in a 16th century Latin probate act book, I have come across a symbol that commonly appears at the end of entries, and sometimes within entries: What does it represent? Is ...

Part of Documents of Medieval Latin (page 14) states several differences between Classical Latin and Medieval Latin. One is an increased use of prepositions where Classical Latin used a simple ...

The prefix of ínstó seems to suggest pressure or movement in a way that minor doesn't, but is that suggestion borne out in their actual use? Quí minátur quasi fíxus est, quí ínstat in aliquem movet?

So Dido's almost finished her long, drawn-out suicide scene, and we get the lines Dīxit, et ōs impressa torō, "Moriēmur inultae, sed moriāmur," ait. It seems like impressa is being used here as ...

In Róma Æterna (second volume of Lingua Latína per sé illustráta), p. 209, in a discussion of Hannibal adapted from Livy book XXI, contains the following sentence: Odiís etiam prope májóribus ...

In VII.346-7 of the Æneid, when Juno sics Allecto on Amata, we have Hic dea cæruleís únum dé crínibus anguem Conjicit inque sinum præcordia ad intima subdit. Allecto's … blue hair? Hunh?...

Both nam and enim are generally defined as meaning "for," the only difference between them being that nam comes first in a clause and that enim is postpositive (i.e., it comes second). Is there a ...

I understand that in Classical Latin, when someone asks a question, the -ne causes stress patterns for some words to be modified, so that both the -ne and the new stress pattern indicates that the ...

Genesim 1:13 Hieronymus sic traduxit: Et factum est vespere et mane, dies tertius. Cur “vespere”, non “vesper”? Puto id in casu nominativo esse debere, sed nonne “vespere” in casu ablativo est? Si ...

Apicius' de re coquinaria (Roman recipe book believed to have been compiled in the 4th/5th century CE) contains, in the book 3 "cepuros" on vegetables, a paragraph (XX, recipes 115 to 121) entitled "...

My intuition says that "every fourth year" would translate to Latin as "quarto quoque anno". I read the comic Asterix Olympius in Latin, and on page 11 the druid describes the Olympic games like this: ...

[Wiktionary :] From Proto-Indo-European *ster- ‎(“stiff”). [...] Etymonline's entry for 'strenuous' (adj.) references Etymonline's entry for 'stern' (adj.) which states the same PIE root as above. ...

[Etymonline:] Old French recreant "defeated, vanquished, yielding, giving; weak, exhausted; cowardly," present participle adjective from recroire "to yield in a trial by combat, surrender allegiance," ...

appellere from ad- "to" + pellere "to beat, drive" (see pulse (n.1)) resolvere "to loosen, loose, unyoke, undo; explain; relax; set free; make void, dispel," from re-, perhaps intensive, or "...

In addition to their (usual) meanings as prepositions, many common prefixes ad-, com-, de-, ex-, re-, etc... serve as intensive prefixes; but for a given verb, what governed or influenced or ...

From this overview of punctuation in Classical Latin, I understand that word spacing as we know it didn't really exist at that time: either an interpunct was used to separate words, or there was no ...

Throughout my time studying Latin in school, one grammatical construction in particular has always intrigued me to an extent — the future passive infinitive (eg. amatum iri). Whenever it came up (...

In Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata, chapter 6, exercise 5.8, I see the sentence: Dominus verberat servōs ____ nōn pārent. Since servōs is accusative, I put quōs in the blank. But the answer key ...

In Horace's Odes 1.8, Horace criticizes his ex's new boyfriend by saying, among other things, that: ...olivum sanguine viperino cautius vitat... which, roughly, means He avoids olive oil more ...

In a 1957 encyclical titled Invicti Athletae, Pope Pius XII wrote: ... non solum profuso sanguine fidei nostrae testimonium Deo praebetur ... which the official translation renders ... not only ...

I've seen sed, vērō, and vērum described as "but, butter, buttest," but the descriptions in e.g. Gildersleeve, Bennett—even Zumpt—leave me scratching my head.

I have seen this sentence translated as both "Only the Goddess knows fate" and "Only the Goddess knows their fate". That aside, I remember someone telling me that this was not correct Latin, and it ...

Preface: Etymonline does not answer this question. I (but please tell me if I should not) quote the definitions for the English verbs (Loan words from Latin then Old French) because they did not ...

As part of a(nother) assignment for my Latin class, we have to write a description of how we spend our free time. I'm trying to translate this: After my homework is done, I like to program. So far,...

Genesim 1:8 Hieronymus traducit ita: Vocavitque Deus firmamentum, Cælum: et factum est vespere et mane, dies secundus. Cur “factum”, non “facta”? Nonne subiectum est "vespere et mane", et nonne ...

I'm continuing reading Cappelli's The elements of abbreviation in medieval Latin paleography, and early on he discusses medieval truncation signs. There are three types used: An interpunct (first ...

I'm interested in the proper Classical pronunciation of the word 'ait'. I've been pronouncing it as 'ate', /eɪt/. Should it instead be pronounced as /a.it/ or even /aɪ.it/? What evidence is there ...