Kilo Lingo
Latin grammar Part of Chapter 2

CEFR A1-A2

3 min read

Test yourself (20 questions)

Latin Slang: How Romans Actually Spoke

By Michael McGettrickUpdated 11 October 2026

Latin was taught for two thousand years from Cicero's speeches and Virgil's , so it sounds as if nobody ever used it to heckle a bad play. They did. Plautus' comedies and the Pompeii walls preserve the Latin of the street, and it is fast, rude and full of noises.

Quick check

Three quick questions on what you have just read. The full practice is further down.

Pick the right one

0/3

Pick the right word for each situation. Read the scene, then tap the Latin.

  1. Someone is about to give away the plot loudly in a crowded theatre. What do you hiss at them?

  2. Your friend has just won at knucklebones and is showing off. What do you shout?

  3. You want someone to hurry up and get moving.

The street words on one screen

LatinEnglishExample
!Hey! Oi!, ! Hey, you!
St!Shh!St! Tace. Shh! Quiet.
Babae!Wow!Babae! Wow!
Eugepae!Brilliant!Eugepae! Hooray!
Nugae!Rubbish!Nugae! Nonsense!
!Come on!, ! Come on, come here!
please (casual), . Tell me, please.
furcifergallows-rogue, furcifer! Clear off, you rogue!
bellusnice, pretty bella . The girl is pretty.

Plautus' characters are slaves, soldiers, pimps and lovesick sons, and they talk like people in a farce. Below, each group with what it is for.

Getting attention, and silence

LatinWhat it doesExample
!hails someone, Marce! Hey, Marcus!
St!demands silence, nowSt! Tace. Shh! Be quiet.

does the job of oi: rude to a stranger, normal between friends. St is barely a word, and your shh is doing the same job twenty centuries on.

Reactions

LatinEnglishNote
Babae! !Wow!surprise or admiration
Eugepae!Brilliant! Hooray!Greek with a comic tail
Nugae!Rubbish!properly a noun: trifles, nonsense

Several are Greek loanwords ( is Greek papai, babae is babai). Romans borrowed them the way English borrowed voilà. Both are stock noises in Roman comedy.

  • Nugae! . - Rubbish! I did not say that.

Hurry up, and please

! is the bare command of , do, drive, used like come on. Agedum adds - for impatience: come on, will you.

  • Agedum, . - Come on, tell me.

is a casual please, worn down from , if you are willing. The ordinary polite word is , I ask:

LatinRegisterExample
mate to mate, . Tell me, please.
coaxing (comedy), . Please, come.
polite, neutral, . Tell me, I beg you.

Calling someone a name

Comedy needed insults it could shout across a stage, and it settled on two stock ones:

LatinLiterallyMeans
furciferfork-carrier (a slave's yoke)gallows-rogue, scoundrel
verberoone for the whip (verber)someone who needs a flogging
  • , furcifer! - Clear off, you rogue!

The two often come together, so the insult has two barrels.

The word for nice

Bellus, adverb belle, is colloquial Latin's nice or pretty. It turns up in comedy and in Cicero's private letters to Atticus, but rarely in his speeches: too breezy for the . Most etymologies take it as a diminutive of , good.

  • bella . - The girl is pretty.

What the walls said

Pompeii's walls carry thousands of scratched inscriptions: names, boasts, insults, gladiator scores, declarations of love. The House of the Tragic Poet still has its cave mosaic in the doorway:

  • . - Beware of the dog.
The front of a Roman house with a red-tiled roof, round windows and potted plants; a white doorway with columns and a pediment stands open, an orange door swung inward. On the threshold in front lies a tiled mosaic with a red-tiled border, showing a black dog with a red collar in the Pompeii cave canem style.
  4. .

The mosaic sits on the limen, the threshold of the ostium, the doorway: the first thing a visitor read.

  • the wall, where the graffiti wentthe wall, where the graffiti went

And one wall complained, in , about everything written on it (it was copied in more than one place):

  • Admiror, , . - I am amazed, wall, that you have not collapsed.

Some Pompeian graffiti is far less printable, and so is Catullus' poem 16. Both are attested; neither is reproduced here.

What to do next

  1. Learn the five noises: , St, Babae, Eugepae, Nugae.
  2. Run the drill below: the street scene, then the sorting.
  3. Then learn the polite side in Latin greetings.

Practise: test yourself

Matching

0/5

Match each Latin exclamation to what it means. These are the noises Plautus' characters actually made.

Sort into groups

0/7

What is each word for? Sort it.

Tap a word, then the group it belongs in.

Complete the story

0/4

Two neighbours in a Roman street. Choose the right word for each gap.

Trouble in the street

, Marce! Veni huc. ! Rex in via est. Dic mihi, , ubi est frater tuus? Ille aquam meam habet!

Gap 1 of 4

Pick the right one

0/4

Pick the right word for each situation. Read the scene, then tap the Latin.

  1. Someone is about to give away the plot loudly in a crowded theatre. What do you hiss at them?

  2. Your friend has just won at knucklebones and is showing off. What do you shout?

  3. You want someone to hurry up and get moving.

  4. You spot a friend across the forum and want to catch their attention.

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Practice worksheets and infographics

Practice worksheets with answer keys built in, plus infographic and listicle formats. Open any one to view, print or save.

Infographics

  1. Key points infographic
  2. The street words on one screen
  3. Getting attention, and silence
  4. Reactions
  5. Hurry up, and please
  6. Calling someone a name

Other formats

  1. Listicle

More grammar on this course

Frequently asked questions

Did Romans actually use slang?
Yes, and we can prove it two separate ways. Plautus' comedies, written for an ordinary theatre crowd rather than the Senate, are full of exclamations, insults and fillers (!, St!, Eugepae!, furcifer) that never turn up in formal oratory. Separately, the graffiti scratched into the plaster at Pompeii preserve names, boasts, insults and love complaints in exactly the register you would expect from a wall rather than a book.
What does furcifer mean in Latin?
Literally one who carries the furca, the fork-shaped wooden yoke used to punish and parade slaves in disgrace. By the time Plautus uses it on stage it has flattened into a general insult, gallows-rogue or scoundrel, thrown at anyone from a real criminal to a slave who has merely talked back. Verbero, from verber, a whip, does much the same job and often turns up alongside it.
What is Pompeii graffiti and why does it matter for learning Latin?
When Vesuvius buried Pompeii in 79 AD, it preserved thousands of inscriptions scratched into walls by ordinary residents: names, gladiator scores, insults, declarations of love, even a wall complaining in about how much it had been written on. Because they were never meant as literature, they show Latin as ordinary people used it, a very different register from the speeches and poetry Latin is usually taught from.
What does mean and where does it come from?
Beware of the dog. The most famous example is a mosaic in the entrance of the House of the Tragic Poet in Pompeii, showing a chained dog above the words. It is a household warning sign, not a literary line, which is exactly why it has become one of the best-known fragments of Latin.
How did Romans say please casually?
With , a worn-down , if you are willing: dic, , tell me, please. Comedy also uses , literally I will love you, for a coaxing please. The ordinary polite word, fine with anyone, is , I ask.