Latin

How to spell latin

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce latin

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does latin mean?

1. nounThe classical language of ancient Rome, still used in scholarship, law, and religious texts.
2. adjectiveRelating to the peoples or cultures whose languages descend from Roman speech, such as those of Spain, Italy, and Latin America.

Latin in a sentence

• noun

  She studied latin for three years before reading Virgil in the original.

• adjective

  The restaurant served a menu inspired by latin cuisine from across South America.

• noun

  Many medical and legal terms are borrowed directly from latin.

• adjective

  The festival celebrated latin music with rhythms from Cuba and Brazil.

Where does latin come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin adjective Latinus, which meant 'belonging to Latium', the plain in central Italy where the city of Rome was founded. The people of that region were the Latini, and their tongue was the lingua Latina, literally 'the Latin language'. As Rome expanded, this local speech of one small district became the administrative and literary language of an empire, then the language of the medieval Church and of European scholarship. English absorbed the term very early, through Old English and reinforced later by Old French, which is why it has been spelled with a single 't' and a plain ending for as long as records exist. The same Latium root quietly survives in words like 'latitude' and in the place name itself, and the single consonants are precisely what make the spelling deceptively plain rather than tricky.

How the word is built

• Latin- (from Latium, the region of central Italy)
• -in (adjectival/noun ending)