Latin Phrases Used in English: 30 You Already Say

English did not borrow Latin words so much as snatch whole phrases out of Latin sentences and freeze them, endings and all. Each ending still says what it was doing: a case after a preposition, an order, a whole verb. Here are more than thirty, grouped by the grammar they teach.

Prepositions with the ablative

A Latin preposition fixes the case of the noun after it, and these phrases kept the pair intact. De, ex, pro, sine and a always take the ablative.

De facto is what happens in practice; de iure, what the law says. A de facto leader runs the country whoever is entitled to.

An adjournment sine die, with no day fixed for the return, is in committee terms a burial.

Prepositions with the accusative

Ad, per, ante, post and ultra always take the accusative.

Per capita is a neuter plural: by heads. The singular per caput exists but is rare.

Meridies is midday itself, which is why 12 noon is strictly neither a.m. nor p.m.: it is neither before midday nor after it.

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1. 1ante meridiem
2. 2meridies
3. 3post meridiem

Ante meridiem, before midday (a.m.); meridies, midday itself; post meridiem, after midday (p.m.). Ante and post take the accusative.

In takes both cases and means different things by them: the ablative for where a thing is, the accusative for where it is going.

Orders: imperatives and one subjunctive

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1. 1Cave canem!

Cave canem, beware of the dog: the imperative cave plus canem, the accusative of canis. Pompeian doorways carry it as a mosaic.

Caveat emptor only looks like an imperative. Caveat is the present subjunctive, and on its own in a main clause it gives an order to someone not being spoken to: let the buyer beware. That is the jussive subjunctive, the same form as fiat lux, let there be light. Emptor is nominative, the subject.

Carpe diem is not quite seize the day. Carpo means pluck, as you pluck fruit; Horace's line (Odes 1.11) is about enjoying a day while it is ripe.

i.e., e.g. and the other abbreviations

I.e. restates and closes the list; e.g. gives a sample and leaves it open:

• the largest UK city, i.e. London - there is only one.
• large UK cities, e.g. Leeds - there are others.

Exempli gratia looks back to front because gratia, for the sake of, takes a genitive that stands before it: of an example, for the sake. Honoris causa, for the sake of honour, on an honorary degree, works the same way.

Et cetera is et plus cetera, the rest, a neuter plural. Write etc., never ect., and never and etc., which says and and the rest.

Whole Latin verbs in English

Some English nouns are complete Latin verbs, with the person in the ending:

Most arrived as the memorable word of a Latin sentence: a stage direction (exit), a grand jury's endorsement on a bill (ignoramus), a line of the Office of the Dead (placebo Domino, I shall please the Lord). English kept the word and threw away the sentence. Video (I see) and audio (I hear) are the exception: twentieth-century coinages from the Latin verbs.

Calling one person an ignoramus is, grammatically, calling him "we do not know".

Endings English froze

Bona fide is the whole story in two words. English met an ablative, in good faith, and made it an adjective: a bona fide offer. Then the nominative bona fides, a feminine singular, came in separately and is often given a plural verb: his bona fides are impeccable.

Vice versa is an ablative absolute, a noun and a participle in the ablative making a little clause of their own. You have been using the construction that stops Latin learners cold for years.

How English these fossils have become is a gradient:

Mistakes English speakers make

What to do next

1. Sort the phrases you use by case: which take the ablative, which the accusative.
2. Read the uses of the ablative for bona fide and de facto in full.
3. Then legal Latin, the courtroom half of the same vocabulary.