Translation
quickly, swiftly; soon
Examples
.
He came quickly and left quickly.
redibit.
He will come back sooner than you think.
Fac .
Do quickly what I ordered.
.
He answered too quickly.
dicta nocent.
Words spoken quickly often do harm.
Cito is the adverb of citus, "swift", which is itself the perfect participle of cieo, "set in motion". The comparative citius and superlative citissime both turn up, and citius is the form the corpus actually carries. The Olympic motto keeps it in circulation: citius, altius, fortius.
The trap is a homograph. Cito the adverb has a short final o; cito, citare, citavi, citatum is a first-conjugation verb meaning "summon, call up, cite", and its first person singular is spelt identically. Only the sentence tells you which you have, and the verb is the commoner of the two in legal and ecclesiastical texts, where citare is what you do to a defendant. English cite, citation and excite come from the verb; the adverb left no direct descendant, though Italian cito and Spanish cedo carried it a while.
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cito: worksheet, infographic and listicle
Free printable study downloads for the Latin word "cito" (quickly, swiftly; soon): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.
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Start your free weekThis word is part of lesson 13.