Latin Irregular Verbs: sum, possum, eo, fero, volo, nolo, malo

Seven Latin verbs refuse the regular patterns, and they are the ones you meet most: to be, can, go, carry, want, not want and prefer. Their personal endings are the usual ones. What breaks is the stem.

All seven on one screen

Learn this first: the meaning, the infinitive and the he, she form.

Six of the infinitives end in a doubled consonant plus -e; the seventh, ire, is the stem i- plus -re. A short infinitive is the quickest sign you have one of these verbs.

Possum, volo, nolo and malo usually take an infinitive, as can, want and prefer do:

• Venire possum. - I can come.
• Dormire volo. - I want to sleep.

sum and possum, eo and fero

sum and possum

Sum switches between su- and es-. Possum is sum with a prefix that follows one rule: pos- before an s, pot- before a vowel.

• Rex in urbe est. - The king is in the city.
• Dormire non possum. - I cannot sleep.

eo and fero

The stem of eo is just i-, and it turns into e- before a vowel: eo, eunt. Everywhere else you see the i-.

Fero is a third-conjugation verb like dico that drops the linking vowel in three forms and the infinitive:

• Pater domum it. - Father is going home.
• Aquam fert. - He/she is carrying water.

Domum needs no preposition: you go home, or to a town, with the bare accusative.

volo, nolo and malo

Nolo is ne plus volo, not want. Where volo starts with vol-, nolo fuses into nol-; in the other three forms it just puts non in front. Malo is magis plus volo, want more: mal- where volo has vol-, mav- elsewhere.

• Dormire volo. - I want to sleep.
• Venire non vult. - He/she does not want to come.
• Ambulare malo quam manere. - I would rather walk than stay.

Malo takes quam for than. And vis is also the noun force: context settles it, and an infinitive nearby (venire vis, you want to come) means the verb.

Commands: es, i, fer and noli

I is one letter long and a complete sentence. In Church Latin the Mass dismisses the people with Ite, missa est, go, it is the dismissal (more on commands). Noli and nolite with an infinitive make the ordinary negative command:

• Noli clamare. - Don't shout (to one person).
• Nolite ridere. - Don't laugh (to several).

Possum, volo and malo have no imperative at all.

Compounds of sum and eo

Put a preposition in front and the verb conjugates exactly as before:

Adsum is the old roll-call answer, present!, and its command is the carol's Adeste, be here. English exit is the Latin stage direction, he goes out. Fero has a whole family of its own, with its odd perfect tuli: see Latin fero and its compounds.

The other tenses, for reference

Beyond the present these verbs mostly fall back into line. First person only; the rest follows:

Three things the table cannot show:

• Sum and possum keep their own endings: erat, he was; erit, he will be.
• Eo takes the -bo future (ibit, he will go); fero and volo take -am, -es, -et (feret, volet).
• The perfect of eo is usually ii; ivi also occurs, less often, and compounds almost always take -ii (redii, exii).

Facio and fio

Facio has no passive of its own in the present, imperfect and future. The job goes to fio: I am made, I become and, in the third person, it happens. The forms you will meet most are fit and fiunt, with the infinitive fieri:

• Quid fit? - What is going on?
• Fieri non potest. - It cannot happen; it is impossible.

The perfect passive goes back to facio: factum est, it was done, it happened.

Mistakes English speakers make

Two traps of reading rather than writing: is can be you go, and malo can be I prefer rather than a form of malus, bad. If a sentence seems to have no verb, one of these short forms is hiding in it.

What to do next

1. Say the six present forms of each verb aloud until vis, vult and fers, fert come without thinking.
2. Do the drill below.
3. Read on to the imperfect, where eram and poteram reappear.