Latin Dictionaries

Every researcher should understand the importance of using dictionaries and other resources when conducting research, especially when a genealogist or family historian is looking through records in a foreign language.

Due to the nature of the Latin language, there are specific conventions and forms that Latin dictionaries use to convey all the necessary linguistic information. Unfortunately, this makes Latin dictionaries quite different from a typical English dictionary or even other foreign dictionaries for languages like Spanish or German.

Due to the unique structure and organization of Latin dictionaries, it is essential to learn the different formats that are used, what they mean, and what information they are meant to show. Since this page is just an overview of these concepts, there will be some terms and principles that are new and will not be fully explored on this page. Use the other grammar pages of this tutorial to supplement and enrich your understanding of the concepts and terminology that will be presented below.

Vowels

In Latin, there are six vowels: A, E, I, O, U, and Y. Latin further distinguishes between short and long vowels. In writing, a long vowel is typically marked by using a line over the said vowel, which is called a marcon (◌̄) (for example, ā, ē, ī, ō, ū, and ȳ). Many dictionaries, to further distinguish between a short and long vowel in particularly crucial places, will mark short vowels with a breve (◌̆) (ǎ, ě, ǐ, ǒ, ǔ, and y̌).

While many of the texts that a genealogist or family researcher will read will not use macrons or breves to differentiate between long and short vowels, these are nearly always included in dictionaries. This is because the difference between long and short vowels has very important grammatical consequences that, in some cases, can completely change the meaning of a word.

One notable example comes from Saint Augustine of Hippo, who lived in the 4th century. During that time, Classical Latin was transforming into a modern romance language. Saint Augustine complained that the people in Hippo could no longer distinguish long vowels and thus could not tell the difference between a 'mouth' ōs and a 'bone' ǒs.

It is also important to note that the ligatures, or combined letter forms, /æ/ and /œ/, represent distinct diphthongs (such as in dæmon 'demon' and fœdus 'treaty'). Some dictionaries will keep ligatures together, while others will break them into /ae/ and /oe/, respectively.

Nouns

In Latin, there are five classes of nouns (referred to as first declension, second declension, etc.), and certain classes are further subdivided into masculine, feminine, and neuter declensions. In total, this makes, at minimum, seven different kinds of major noun forms. In order to make this less confusing but still provide all the necessary information, a noun entry in a Latin dictionary will look like the following:

The first section gives the noun's nominative and then genitive ending: aqua, -æ (see the Nouns page of this tutorial for a more detailed explanation of grammatical cases like nominative and genitive). The inclusion of the genitive ending, /-æ/ in this case, clues the user into the noun class if no number is provided. In this case, this is a first declension noun that uses the endings /-a, -æ/.

Usually, after providing some etymological information in parentheses, there is an m, f, or n, which tells the user if the noun's gender is masculine, feminine, or neuter. Gender in language usually has nothing to do with the physical characteristics of the noun being described but rather refers to the grammatical gender of the word. In this entry, the 'f' indicates that the noun is feminine.

After this basic information, the word's translation and definition will be provided. Depending on the word, there can be several entries. In this case, we see that aqua, -æ means 'water.'

Here is another example, this time with the word aurum, -i. The ending -um, -i clues us that this is a second declension, neuter noun that means 'gold.'

Some entries like this one may look odd as arma, armōrum is a second declension plural. Generally, nouns are always recorded in the singular, but in cases like this, arma, armōrum, is plural because this word is exclusively used in the plural form.

Another resource that is invaluable when working in Latin is the paradigm. A paradigm is a chart that shows all the declensions of a given noun. This is particularly useful when dealing with irregular nouns or pronouns. Below is an example of a paradigm from Cactus 2000, which is an excellent resource for Latin paradigms:

The noun class is provided directly above the paradigm (in this instance, first declension). Notice the order of the grammatical cases on the left side: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Ablative, and (sometimes) Vocative or Locative. Nearly all paradigms will follow this order and will keep to this format; this is why dictionary entries provide the nominative and genitive endings, as these are the first two entries in the noun paradigm.

Adjectives

Adjectives are similar to nouns, and they change to agree in gender and number with the noun they modify. Adjective entries are formatted to reflect this. There are three classes of adjectives, also referred to as declensions.

The most straightforward adjective entry is for what is called a first and second declension adjective, like the following:

Here the adjective lætus, which means 'happy,' is entered as lætus, -a, -um. The endings -us, -a, -um show that the adjective stem læt- can take the masculine, feminine, and neuter endings, respectively.

The next kind of adjective is called a third declension adjective. These kinds of adjectives can have a varying number of endings, and if the dictionary does not explicitly tell the user if it is a one, two, or three terminations adjective (i.e., whether the adjective has one, two, or three different endings), then the way the adjective is entered in the dictionary will clue in the user. For example, here is an example of a one-termination adjective:

Here, we see the entry dīligens, -entis, which means 'diligent' or 'careful.' Since the ending -entis is a genitive ending, and it is the only one of its kind provided in the entry, we can assume that this is a one-termination adjective and that ending is used for all three genders.

On the other hand, here is an example of a three-termination adjective:

Here, the entry is celer, -eris, -ere, which shows that there are three endings, one for each gender (the additional form celeriter is an adverbial, meaning that it is used with verbs).

If there still remains confusion on how many terminations a third declension adjective has, it is a good idea to check that adjective's paradigm, for example here is the paradigm of celer below):

Verbs

Similar to how nouns are part of various classes, Latin verbs are generally classified into four conjugations. In order to make dictionary entries compact but still have all the information needed, Latin dictionaries use a four-part formate where each principal part gives an important piece of the verb's conjugation and 'identity.'

Here is the verb dīcō, dīcere, dīxī, dictum, which means 'to say':

The first principal part of this verb is dīcō which is the first person present form of the verb. In English, this would translate to 'I say.' The first principal part will always be in the first person present form as this gives important clues to the verb's conjugation, especially for irregular verbs.

The second principal part of this verb is dīcere, which is in the infinitive form and translates as 'to say' in English. This principal part also helps us identify which of the four conjugations this verb belongs to if it is not marked by a number. In this case, we can tell that this verb is a third conjugation verb. Finally, this is the principle part that is used to conjugate the verbs in the present system.

The third principal part of this verb is dīxī, which is the first person perfect form of the verb and translates to 'I said' in English. This principal part is important as it clues the user on how to conjugate verbs in the perfect system, which is often very different in form than the infinitive form and is not always predictable.

The fourth principal part of the verb is dictum. This principal part is used to create the participle form of the verb, which is where a verb acts like a noun.

The grand majority of verbs will follow this predictable verb formate with all four principal parts, so when you are looking up a verb in the dictionary, you will find it listed with the first principal part, or its first person present form, listed first.

One exception to this is the category of deponent verbs, which are verbs constructed in the passive form but function like regular active verbs. Here is an example of a deponent verb:

Here is the verb loquor, loquī, locūtus sum, which means 'to talk, to speak' and is a common verb in Latin. Notice that here, as in many other dictionaries, the entry is followed by the abbreviation dep., which is short for deponent. Like other verbs, it is divided into different principal parts. Deponent verbs only have three principal parts, which are the first person present, the infinitive, and the participle.

As with nouns, it can be useful to consult a verb chart that shows all the conjugations of a given verb. These can be quite long due to the complex nature of Latin verbs. Here is another example from Cactus 2000 showing a chart for amō, amāre, amāvī, amātum, 'to love:

• Image: Dr. Marcus Gossier, Latin dictionary, 2005, Photograph, Digital image, Wikimedia Commons (https://en.wikipedia.org : accessed 20 July 2023). This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
• Portrait: Jaume Huguet, Consecration of Saint Augustine, c.1470, Painting, Digital image, Wikimedia Commons (https://en.wikipedia.org : accessed 20 July 2023). This image is in the public domain.
• Excerpts: taken from Cassell's Latin Dictionary: Latin-English, English-Latin, ed. D.P. Simpson (1977) and Latin Cactus2000