Prerequisites: Foundations
This page is the overview of the Latin noun system: what information a noun carries, how to read a dictionary entry, what the cases do, how number and gender work, and how the five declensions relate to one another. The individual declensions are treated on the pages that follow; complete paradigms are in Paradigms: nouns.
A Latin noun names a person, place, thing or idea, and it changes its ending to show how it works in the sentence. Every noun form carries three pieces of information at once:
| Category | Choices | Fixed or variable? |
|---|---|---|
| Case | nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, vocative (and a trace of the locative) | varies with function |
| Number | singular, plural | varies with meaning |
| Gender | masculine, feminine, neuter | fixed for each noun |
Case and number are read from the ending. Gender is a permanent property of the noun that must be learned with the word; it is important because adjectives and pronouns agree with it.
A noun form is built from a stem and an ending: ros-ae (stem ros-, ending -ae), domin-ō, rēg-is. Latin has no articles, so rosa may be rose, a rose or the rose.
A noun is listed with three pieces of information, which you must learn together:
nominative, genitive, gender, meaning
| Entry | Stem | Declension |
|---|---|---|
| rosa, -ae, f. rose | ros- | 1st |
| dominus, -ī, m. master | domin- | 2nd |
| bellum, -ī, n. war | bell- | 2nd |
| rēx, rēgis, m. king | rēg- | 3rd |
| manus, -ūs, f. hand | man- | 4th |
| diēs, -ēī, m. day | di- | 5th |
Why the genitive? Two reasons:
Always learn the genitive with the nominative. A noun learned without it cannot be declined reliably.
A case is a form of the noun that shows its function in the sentence. English has traces of this (he / him / his) but expresses most functions with word order and prepositions. Latin expresses them with endings.
| Case | Basic function | Typical English | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | subject; predicate noun | (none) | Salūs populī suprēma lēx estō. |
| Genitive | possession, belonging, description | of, 's | Salūs populī suprēma lēx estō. |
| Dative | indirect object; advantage | to, for | Nōn scholae, sed vītae discimus. |
| Accusative | direct object; goal of motion; extent | (none), to, for | Arma virumque canō. |
| Ablative | means, manner, separation, place from which | by, with, from, in | quī ipsōrum linguā Celtae, nostrā Gallī appellantur |
| Vocative | direct address | O | Quō ūsque tandem abūtēre, Catilīna, patientiā nostrā? |
Translations:
The nominative is the form listed in the dictionary. The six cases are exactly what the Syntax section develops under Uses of the cases; here only the core functions is relevant.
A seventh case, the locative, survives only in a few words, mainly for place where. It exists for names of towns and small islands and for a handful of common nouns:
| Form | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Rōmae | at Rome |
| Athēnīs | at Athens |
| domī | at home |
| humī | on the ground |
| domī mīlitiaeque | at home and in the field |
In the singular of the 1st and 2nd declensions the locative is -ae and -ī; in the plural it is identical with the ablative. Everywhere else, place where is expressed with in and the ablative.
Textbooks differ. Most modern American books list: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative (and vocative). Older British grammars list: nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative. This site uses the first order. Whichever you use, it is only a convention for memorising paradigms.
The cases are the core of the system, but Latin also has prepositions. Each preposition governs a particular case, most often the accusative or the ablative (for instance prō patriā, for the fatherland, takes the ablative). Prepositions are treated under Invariable words.
Latin has two numbers: singular and plural. There is no dual.
Plural-only nouns (plūrālia tantum) have no singular: arma (arms), moenia (city walls), īnsidiae (ambush), nuptiae (wedding), dīvitiae (riches), and many place names such as Athēnae and Thēbae.
Some nouns change meaning in the plural:
| Singular | Plural |
|---|---|
| castrum fort | castra camp |
| littera letter (of the alphabet) | litterae epistle; literature |
| cōpia abundance | cōpiae troops |
| aedēs temple | aedēs house (plural sense) |
Mass and abstract nouns such as aurum (gold) and pāx (peace) usually lack a plural, though a plural can occur with a changed sense.
Defective nouns with missing forms are treated on the page Fourth and fifth declensions, irregular and defective nouns.
Latin has three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. Gender is partly due to meaning and partly a to grammar, and it is a fixed property of each noun.
Each declension has a tendency (for example 1st declension mostly feminine, 2nd declension in -us masculine and in -um neuter). These tendencies are covered on the declension pages, and none is absolute. When in doubt, the dictionary gives the gender.
Neuter nouns look different from masculines and feminines in only a few forms, but those forms are important throughout the language. They hold in every declension:
A declension is a family of nouns that share a set of endings. Latin has five. The signpost is the genitive singular:
| Declension | Genitive singular | Stem vowel | Nominative | Gender tendency | Model |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | -ae | ā | -a | feminine | rosa, rosae |
| 2nd | -ī | o | -us, -er, -ir / -um | masculine / neuter | dominus, dominī; bellum, bellī |
| 3rd | -is | consonant or i | various | all three genders | rēx, rēgis |
| 4th | -ūs | u | -us / -ū | mostly feminine / neuter | manus, manūs |
| 5th | -ēī or -eī | ē | -ēs | mostly feminine | diēs, diēī |
The declension is not the same as the gender, and it is not the same as conjugation, which belongs to verbs.
Learn these as a family rather than as five unrelated lists. (Masculine and feminine endings are shown; neuter differences follow the three neuter rules above. The third declension has many variants, treated on its own page.)
| Case | 1st sing. | 2nd sing. | 3rd sing. | 4th sing. | 5th sing. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nom. | -a | -us | various | -us | -ēs |
| Gen. | -ae | -ī | -is | -ūs | -ēī / -eī |
| Dat. | -ae | -ō | -ī | -uī | -ēī / -eī |
| Acc. | -am | -um | -em | -um | -em |
| Abl. | -ā | -ō | -e | -ū | -ē |
| Case | 1st pl. | 2nd pl. | 3rd pl. | 4th pl. | 5th pl. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nom. | -ae | -ī | -ēs | -ūs | -ēs |
| Gen. | -ārum | -ōrum | -um | -uum | -ērum |
| Dat. | -īs | -īs | -ibus | -ibus | -ēbus |
| Acc. | -ās | -ōs | -ēs | -ūs | -ēs |
| Abl. | -īs | -īs | -ibus | -ibus | -ēbus |
The vocative equals the nominative, except in the singular of 2nd declension nouns in -us.
When you meet an unknown noun form, work in this order:
| Form | Possible analyses |
|---|---|
| rosae | genitive singular; dative singular; nominative plural; vocative plural |
| rosā | ablative singular only (compare the nominative rosa; the macron decides) |
| dominō | dative singular; ablative singular |
| dominī | genitive singular; nominative plural; vocative plural |
| bella | nominative, accusative or vocative plural of a neuter |
| dominīs | dative plural; ablative plural |
Learn to hold several possibilities in mind and let the sentence decide.
Adjectives and many pronouns agree with their noun in case, number and gender. That is why gender is a fixed property of a noun: it tells the reader which form of the adjective to expect. In nauta bonus, nauta has a feminine-looking ending but is masculine, so the adjective is masculine. See Adjectives and adverbs for the full system.
Answers
Next: Nouns