Latin Grammar Review: Nouns

As we begin reading the Latin passages for this course, it's important to take some time to review the fundamentals that you've learned in previous Latin courses. We will dive deeper into specifics within the passages themselves, so it is important to take time now to check your general understanding.

Let's take a moment to see what you remember. Complete this brief self-assessment about Latin nouns before moving on.

Nouns

Please download the Latin Noun Review handout. This document contains notes about noun bases, formation and translation rules. It also contains information about the characteristics of nouns, including a discussion on the major cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative and ablative).

A noun is traditionally defined as a person, place or thing. In Latin, a noun is a word that uses a set of case endings and has three characteristics, which are case, number and gender.

Noun Basics - Dictionary Entry

When looking up a noun in a dictionary or vocabulary handout, nouns will be listed with the following information:

Nominative form
Genitive form
Gender
English meaning

Nota Bene

The nominative and genitive forms will almost always be singular, but there are some nouns that only have plural forms.

The genitive form is included because it provides important information on how to form the noun:

The genitive ending indicates what declension (noun group) a noun belongs to. The noun declension determines what set of endings will be used for a particular noun.
The genitive is used to obtain the noun base, onto which the other noun endings are added.

Example noun dictionary entry:

mors, mortis, f. - death
- mors = nominative singular
- mortis = genitive singular. The -is ending indicates this is a 3rd declension noun.
  - The base for this noun is: mort- (mortis - is)
- f. = feminine. A noun's gender is abbreviated in the dictionary entry:
  - m = masculine
  - f = feminine
  - n = neuter

**Example Dictionary Entries**
1st Declension	2nd Declension	3rd Declension	4th Declension	5th Declension
femina, feminae, f. nauta, nautae, m.	servus, servi, m. ager, agri, m. vir, viri, m. bellum, belli, n.	senator, senatoris, m. mulier, mulieris, f. iter, itineris, n.	casus, casus, m. genu, genus, n.	res, rei, f. dies, diei, m.

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