NCEA Level 3 Latin key terms

A Latin participial phrase made of a noun or pronoun plus a participle, both in the ablative case, standing apart from the main clause and giving the circumstances under which the main action happens.

The Latin case used chiefly with prepositions to express separation, means, agent, manner, and time; it also serves as the case of comparison and of the absolute construction.

The Latin case marking the direct object of a verb and the object of most prepositions of motion towards; it also marks duration of time and extent of space.

The Latin case of the indirect object, marking the person or thing to or for whom something is done; it also follows many verbs and adjectives of helping, pleasing, trusting, and obeying.

The Latin case expressing possession, description, or the whole of which a part is taken; it is also the case governed by certain verbs and adjectives of remembering, forgetting, and guilt.

A genitive naming the whole from which a part is drawn, used with words of quantity, number, or comparison such as pars, satis, or quisque.

A reported clause in which the main verb of saying, thinking, or perceiving is followed by an accusative noun and an infinitive, Latin's standard way of reporting speech without quotation.

A subordinate clause reporting a question rather than asking it directly; Latin puts its verb in the subjunctive, introduced by interrogative words such as quis, quid, cur, ubi, or num.

A reported order or request introduced by a verb such as impero or rogo and expressed by ut or ne with a subjunctive verb.

A subordinate clause expressing the aim of the main action, introduced by ut (or ne for a negative) and taking a subjunctive verb; relative and quo clauses can serve the same function.

A subordinate clause showing a consequence of the main action, introduced by ut (or ut non for a negative) with a subjunctive verb and often signalled beforehand by words like tam, ita, or tantus.

The Latin verb mood of hypothetical, reported, or dependent action, used in purpose, result, indirect question, and conditional clauses; its tenses follow sequence of tense rules.

A verbal adjective that shares the stem of a verb while declining like an adjective; Latin has present, perfect, and future participles, each with distinct time reference.

A future passive participle declining like an adjective, expressing obligation or fitness when used with a form of esse, as in delenda est Carthago, 'Carthage must be destroyed'.

A verbal noun in the neuter singular of the oblique cases, expressing the doing of an action, as in ars scribendi, 'the art of writing'.

The non-finite verb form naming an action without marking person or number; Latin uses it in indirect statement and after many verbs and adjectives, with tense forms that show relative time.

A Latin verb with passive forms but active meaning, such as loqui, 'to speak', or sequi, 'to follow'; its participles may still carry passive force.

The verb form in which the subject undergoes the action rather than performing it; Latin expresses the agent with ab plus the ablative.

A defective verbal noun with only accusative and ablative forms, used after verbs of motion to express purpose and with certain adjectives to express respect.

The rule linking a subjunctive verb's tense to the tense of the main verb: primary sequence takes present or perfect subjunctive, historic sequence takes imperfect or pluperfect.

A sentence with a si or nisi clause stating a condition and a main clause giving the outcome; open conditions use indicative verbs, unreal ones use subjunctive.

The Latin verb mood used for statements and questions presented as fact, contrasting with the subjunctive, which marks reported, hypothetical, or dependent action.

A word governing a noun in the accusative or ablative case to express relations of place, time, or manner, such as in, ad, cum, or per.

The noun or pronoun receiving the action of a transitive verb, regularly put in the accusative case in Latin prose.

The person or thing for whose benefit or to whose disadvantage an action is done, expressed in Latin by the dative case.

The metre of epic and didactic poetry, built from six feet of dactyls (long-short-short) or spondees (long-long), with a fixed pattern of pauses and a final spondee.

A two-line metre pairing a dactylic hexameter with a pentameter, used by Catullus, Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid for love elegy and epigram.

The patterned arrangement of long and short syllables that gives Latin verse its rhythm, determined by syllable quantity rather than stress accent.

A word break falling inside a metrical foot, most often in the third foot of a hexameter, which shapes the rhythm and emphasis of the line.

The dropping of a final vowel or of a vowel plus m before a word beginning with a vowel or h, so that the syllables merge in recitation.

An extended comparison, often drawn from nature or warfare, developed over several lines to illuminate a character or action, as in Homer and Virgil.

A long narrative poem in dactylic hexameter treating heroic deeds and often the founding of a people, exemplified for Latin students by Virgil's Aeneid.

A poem in elegiac couplets, typically concerned with love, loss, or lament; Roman love elegy, written by Propertius and Ovid, is a major Level 3 genre.

The Roman social relationship in which a wealthy patron supported a poet or client in return for loyalty and verse, shaping how poets addressed figures such as Maecenas.

A poetic refusal, in which a writer declines to compose epic or panegyric and chooses a humbler genre, often using the device to praise the patron obliquely.

A moral or illustrative example drawn from history or myth, used in rhetoric and poetry to persuade or to point a lesson, frequently in Livy and Virgil.

The art of persuasive speech, central to Roman education and public life; its figures and structures, such as tricolon and praeteritio, shape Latin prose and verse.

The writing of history as a literary craft, in which Roman authors such as Livy and Tacitus shape narrative, speech, and moral judgement rather than merely record events.