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Addressing a superior in Latin

Apologies if this is too basic, and feel free to delete, but I am curious to know how Romans would address a person of higher status - not a slave his/her master/mistress - but, for instance, a wage-labourer to an employer, a shopkeeper to a…
TheHonRose
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Where did pluralis-ut-singularis come from in Latin?

Anyone who reads Cicero's letters cannot fail to notice that he quite frequently uses nos and noster to mean ego and meus. Earlier I heard a paper where nos in Lucretius' proem was meant singularly (primarily because Venus in Epicurean thought…
cmw
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Was the plural future imperative ever used?

In Latin today, we ran across the word "esto", which our teacher told us is the future singular imperative of "sum, esse". When I half-jokingly asked what the plural was, he thought for a few seconds and stated that, while it probably exists, he'd…
anon
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Saying "thank you"

I have only ever been taught one Latin translation for "thank you", and it is gratias agere (conjugated in a suitable way). I just checked in L&S that this is indeed an attested use of gratia, often with agere. Was this this the only common phrase…
Joonas Ilmavirta
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"qua dabatur liberum aeris spatium" in a letter of Erasmus

Erasmus's letter 1756 (readable in its entirety here) describes an explosion of gunpowder in a castle at Basel. I'm having trouble understanding a five-word phrase in the letter. This is the passage: Vidisses immania fragmenta turris, avium ritu,…
TKR
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What does "quidem" REALLY mean?

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, of course [in antithesis] but, however,…
Joel Derfner
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Constructing Latin diminutives

In the course of trying to construct an accurate diminutive form of the word abdomen - which for the record is Latin in origin (in the form abdōmen), having been borrowed by English via Middle French - for use as the name of a fictional anatomical…
MarqFJA87
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"If and only if"

In mathematical literature "if and only if" (sometimes abbreviated as "iff"1) is a relatively common phrase. Saying "A if and only if B" means that A and B are equivalent logical statements. This is equivalent to but less clumsy than saying "A if B…
Joonas Ilmavirta
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Can there be double diminutives in Latin?

I've been reading some Latin of the 17th and 18th centuries and am wondering if it is possible for there to be "double diminutives." As I understand it, the word "cerebellum" (Oxford Latin = "brain") is a diminutive of "cerebrum" (also "brain"). But…
twoblackboxes
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Quid est differentia inter «opus est» et «necesse est»?

Quid est differentia inter «opus est» et «necesse est»? Exempli gratia,1 "emas non quod opus est, sed quod necesse est; quod non opus est, asse earum est," Quoque «opus est» scriptum est in Symbolum Apostolorum, Quicumque vult salvus esse, ante…
Der Übermensch
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In Romans 3:22, why did Jerome prefer to use crēdunt rather than fīdunt?

The Greek text of the Textus Receptus (1550) states, ΚΒʹ δικαιοσύνη δὲ θεοῦ διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ εἰς πάντας καὶ ἐπὶ πάντας τοὺς πιστεύοντας οὐ γάρ ἐστιν διαστολή TR, 1550 which Jerome translated into Latin as, XXII iustitia autem Dei per…
Der Übermensch
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Descriptive example of Cicero's style

Cicero has produced quite a lot of Latin prose in what is considered excellent style. I would like to find ways to demonstrate briefly what Cicero's style is all about. If you had to demonstrate Cicero's prose style with one sentence from his works,…
Joonas Ilmavirta
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Most accurate Latin word for "book" in this context

The English word "book" has many potential Latin translations, such as liber, monumentum, carta, codex, and volumen. If, in this context, the book refers to a textbook or collection of stories, what would be the most accurate Latin word to use?
Sapphira
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Is the Phrase "Sola Dea Fatum Novit" Proper Latin?

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 has been bugging me ever since. What I have been…
Meta
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So what *is* the Latin word for “chocolate”?

Obviously, the Romans didn’t know anything about chocolate, since they had no access to any of the places cacao grew naturally. By the time Europe did learn of its existence, even ecclesiastical Latin was past its heyday. Nonetheless, Google…
KRyan
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