Translation
door, entrance; mouth of a river
Examples
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The door of the house was open.
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He stood in front of the door for a long time.
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He came in through the door.
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The ship reached the mouth of the river.
aperuerunt.
They did not open the doors of the temple.
Ostium, ostii, n., second declension, from os, oris, "mouth". A doorway is the mouth of a building and a river mouth is a doorway to the sea, and Latin uses the one word for both without feeling it as a metaphor. Rome's port at the Tiber mouth is called Ostia for precisely that reason.
It overlaps with two neighbours. Ianua is the door itself, the physical leaf on its hinges; porta is a gate, of a city or a camp; ostium leans towards the opening, the entrance you pass through. Ecclesiastical Latin keeps it busy - the ostiarius, doorkeeper, was one of the minor orders of clergy for well over a millennium. One caution on the root: os, oris, "mouth" and os, ossis, "bone" are different words that share a nominative, and only the first is behind ostium.
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ostium: worksheet, infographic and listicle
Free printable study downloads for the Latin word "ostium" (door, entrance; mouth of a river): 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 14.