CARTHAGO DELENDA ESTĪt the height of the Punic Wars, fought between Rome and Carthage from 264-146 BCE, a Roman statesman named Cato the Elder had a habit of ending all of his speeches to the Senate with the motto " Carthago delenda est," or "Carthage must be destroyed." His words quickly became a popular and rousing motto in Ancient Rome, and nowadays can be used figuratively to express absolute support for an idea or course of action. CARPE NOCTEMĬarpe noctem is essentially the nocturnal equivalent of carpe diem and so literally means "seize the night." It too is used to encourage someone to make the most of their time, often in the sense of working into the early hours of the morning to get something finished, or else enjoying themselves in the evening once a hard day’s work is done. When the error was pointed out to him, Sigismund angrily proclaimed that because he was Emperor, even if the word was neuter (which it was) it would be feminine from now on, at which point one member of the Council supposedly stood and replied, " Caesar non supra grammaticos"-or "The Emperor is not above the grammarians." The phrase quickly became a popular proverbial defence of the importance of good grammar and spelling. In a speech to the Council of Constance in 1414, the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg happened to use the Latin word schisma, meaning "schism." Unfortunately for him, he muddled up its gender- schisma should be a neuter word, but he used it as if it were feminine. It literally means "senseless thunderbolt." 4. BRUTUM FULMENĪpparently coined by the Roman scholar Pliny the Elder, a brutum fulmen is a harmless or empty threat. This is just one of a number of phrases that show how the Romans associated beards with intelligence, alongside barba non facit philosophum, "a beard does not make a philosopher," and barba crescit caput nescit, meaning "the beard grows, but the head doesn’t grow wiser." 3.
BARBA TENUS SAPIENTESĪ man described as barba tenus sapientes is literally said to be "wise as far as his beard"-or, in other words, he might look intelligent but he’s actually far from it. Like "holding a tiger by the tail," it is used to describe an unsustainable situation, and in particular one in which both doing nothing and doing something to resolve it are equally risky. 161 BCE), a work by the Roman playwright Terence-was a popular proverb in Ancient Rome. It might seem odd to say that you’re "holding a wolf by the ears," but auribus teneo lupum-a line taken from Phormio (c. So next time you spot a misbehaving child, or you want to seize the night rather than the day, you’ll have the perfect phrase at hand.
Latin long live caesar pro#
Even some entire Latin phrases have become so naturalized in English that we use them, in full, without a second thought-like bona fide (literally "in good faith"), alter ego ("other self"), persona non grata ("unwelcome person"), vice versa ("position turned"), carpe diem ("seize the day"), cum laude ("with praise"), alma mater ("nourishing mother"), and quid pro quo ("something for something," "this for that").īesides fairly commonplace examples like these, however, English has adopted a number of much less familiar Latin phrases and expressions that go criminally underused-20 examples of which are listed here. Hundreds of words-like memo, alibi, agenda, census, veto, alias, via, alumni, affidavit and versus-are all used in everyday English, as are abbreviations like i.e.
You’d probably be surprised by how much Latin you actually already know.
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