numquam

numquam is ne plus umquam, "not ever". The spelling nunquam is the same word: m before qu was regularly written n in later manuscripts, and printed texts use both, so do not treat them as different entries. Its positive partner umquam, "ever", appears in questions, conditions and after a negative.

Because Latin cancels negatives instead of stacking them, numquam non means "always" and non numquam means "sometimes". That is the figure grammar books call litotes, and it is a deliberate understatement, not a slip. numquam sits in a tidy set of ne- words that each deny a different thing: numquam a time, nusquam a place, nemo a person, nihil a thing, nullus any of them as an adjective.