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You thought you had enough trouble learning singulars and plurals of English nouns? Well, Latin nouns have not only got singulars and plurals — they come in five declensions, three genders and five (main) cases! But don't worry! Latin nouns are very regular — none of those dodgy irregular endings like in English — and this tutorial will have you declining in no time!

There are three main elements of the Latin noun: number, gender and case. These are what help distinguish different forms of different words, and can make a very large difference when declining things¹.

Number

Number, very simply, is how many there are. And with Latin nouns, there are only two numbers: one and many. Or, in other words, singular and plural. Just like in English, Latin changes a few letters on the end to make a singular word plural, or vice versa. You can see this in English words that come from Latin. The English word octopus is sometimes made plural using the English pattern — octopuses but it can also use one of the standard Latin forms, octopi. Likewise, English medium becomes media — this is, of course, originally a Latin word as well.

Gender

Although people only have two genders, Latin has three: masculine, feminine and neuter. Though some words are obviously masculine or feminine (the Latin word for 'girl', puella, is feminine, whereas the word for 'boy', puer, is masculine) sometimes the designation can seem arbitrary. Like in French, Spanish or German, everything has a gender, whatever it is. In Latin, tables are female (mensa), but rumours are male (rumor) and war is neuter (bellum).

Case

Okay folks, this is the tricky bit. Basically, instead of using word order to determine who is doing the action and who is receiving it, Latin uses cases, or endings tacked onto the ends of words. Whereas in English, you would say:

The boy threw the ball.

And that would be completely different than:

The ball threw the boy.

Latin does things a little differently. In Latin you could say:

Puer iecit pilam.

Or:

Pilam iecit puer.

And it would mean the same thing because in Latin word order is immaterial; it's the endings (like the 'am' ending on 'pilam' and the lack of an ending on 'puer') that tell us what role each noun takes in the sentence².

Before we go any further, it should be noted that Latin has no articles at all (those little words like 'a', 'an' and 'the'). All that stuff is contained within the noun itself. Right, that having been said, let's move on to the cases themselves.

Nominative

The nominative case is the way to describe the subject of the sentence, or the thing doing the action. In the sentence above, 'puer' was in the nominative, as it was doing the action of throwing the ball. Latin nominatives often end with '-a' (if they're feminine), '-us' (if they're masculine) or '-um' (if they're neuter), though this is by no means constant and it really depends on which declension you're using (see below for more on declensions).

Genitive

The genitive is the possessive — what we in English would denote with an 's (or s') is denoted in Latin by putting the noun in the genitive case. For example, when in English we would say something is:

The boy's ball

In Latin we would say it is:

Pilam pueri

Note how the ending of 'puer' changes — above, it was in the nominative, and now it is in the genitive to demonstrate that the ball belongs to it.

Dative

The dative has a variety of uses, but the most basic one (and therefore the one we'll address now) is as the indirect object — when someone or something else receives the action indirectly. In the English sentence:

The boy gave the ball to the girl.

The girl is the indirect object. The ball is the direct object, as it receives the action directly, but the girl is still benefiting from the action and so is the indirect object. In Latin this sentence would be expressed as:

Puer iecit pilam puellae.

In this case 'puellae' is in the dative case of the word 'puella', which takes the place of the 'to the girl' phrase in the English sentence. Pretty neat how they can get three words into one, isn't it?

Accusative

We've been talking about these direct objects like 'pilam' for a while — the accusative is their very own case. This is the case for the people or things who are receiving the action, often denoted by an '-am', '-um' or '-em' ending in Latin. As we've been talking about the accusative all through this tutorial, it seems somewhat redundant to repeat all that about receiving the action yet again, and so I won't.

Ablative

The ablative has even more uses than the dative does, but the simplest way to put it is that it usually takes the place of prepositions. For example, if you would want to say something was done by someone, you'd use the ablative. If you want to say something was done with the help of something else, you'd use the ablative. If you wanted to say that something was completed in a certain period of time, you'd use the ablative. The ablative can also be used with a variety of prepositions, such as those meaning 'in', 'under' and 'through'. The ablative is a bit tricky, so we'll discuss it in detail in later lessons.

So now that we've got the basic parts of the noun down, let's start constructings some nouns! Well... to do that we have to have declensions. And to have declensions we have to ask one very big question...

So What Are These Declension Things, Anyway?

Declensions are, essentially, lists of forms. Since every Latin noun has so many forms to represent case, gender and number, these forms are divided into five easy categories, called declensions. One noun belongs to one of the five declensions, which means that it will use the endings of that declension. There are lots of nouns in each declension, and each is described in detail below. Some of the endings for different forms are the same, but don't worry — you should be able to distinguish them through context.

1st Declension

Type of noun: Mostly feminine, though very occasionally masculine.

Declining the First Declension:

Singular

• Nominative: -a (puella)
• Genitive: -ae (puellae)
• Dative: -ae (puellae)
• Accusative: -am (puellam)
• Ablative: -a (puella)

Plural

• Nominative: -ae (puellae)
• Genitive: -arum (puellarum)
• Dative: -is (puellis)
• Accusative: -as (puellas)
• Ablative: -is (puellis)

Vocabulary:

• agricola, -ae, m. — farmer
• gloria, -ae, f. — glory
• lingua, -ae, f. — language
• mensa, -ae, f. — table
• nauta, -ae, m. — ship
• pecunia, -ae, f. — money
• puella, -ae, f. — girl
• silva, -ae, f. — wood, forest
• via, -ae, f. — road
• vita, -ae, f. — life

To decline: Simply remove the -a from the end of the nominative form. This creates the 'stem' of the word. You may then add whichever ending is appropriate to that 'stem'.

You may have noticed that the way the words are listed above includes their nominative form, their genitive ending and their gender. This is so you can easily tell which declension the word is. If you just saw 'vita, -ae, f.' by itself, you could determine that this word is 1st declension, as no other declension has the genitive ending -ae. Then you would know how to correctly decline the word.

2nd Declension

Type of noun: Masculine or neuter.

Declining the Second Declension:

MASCULINE

Singular

• Nominative: -us (filius)
• Genitive: -i (filii)
• Dative: -o (filio)
• Accusative: -um (filium)
• Ablative: -o (filio)

Plural

• Nominative: -i (filii)
• Genitive: -orum (filiorum)
• Dative: -is (filiis)
• Accusative: -os (filios)
• Ablative: -is (filiis)

NEUTER

Singular

• Nominative: -um (bellum)
• Genitive: -i (belli)
• Dative: -o (bello)
• Accusative: -um (bellum)
• Ablative: -o (bello)

Plural

• Nominative: -a (bella)
• Genitive: -orum (bellorum)
• Dative: -is (bellis)
• Accusative: -a (bella)
• Ablative: -is (bellis)

Vocabulary:

• auxilium, -i, n. — help
• bellum, -i, n. — war
• donum, -i, n. — gift
• equus, -i, m. — horse
• filius, -i, m. — son
• liber, libri, m. — book
• nauta, -ae, m. — ship
• oppidum, -i, n. — town
• praemium, -i, n. — reward
• puer, -i, m. — boy

To decline: Simply remove the -us or -um from the end of the nominative form. This creates the 'stem' of the word. You may then add whichever ending is appropriate to that 'stem'.

3rd Declension

Type of noun: Masculine, feminine or neuter.

Declining the Third Declension:

MASCULINE or FEMININE

Singular

• Nominative: n/a³ (rex)
• Genitive: -is (regis)
• Dative: i (regi)
• Accusative: -em (regem)
• Ablative: -e (rege)

Plural

• Nominative: -es (reges)
• Genitive: -um (regum)
• Dative: -ibus (regibus)
• Accusative: -es (reges)
• Ablative: -ibus (regibus)

NEUTER

Singular

• Nominative: n/a (corpus)
• Genitive: -is (corporis)
• Dative: -i (corpori)
• Accusative: n/a⁴ (corpus)
• Ablative: -e (corpore)

Plural

• Nominative: -a (corpora)
• Genitive: -um (corporum)
• Dative: -ibus (corporibus)
• Accusative: -a (corpora)
• Ablative: -ibus (corporibus)

Vocabulary:

• amor, amoris, m. — love
• carmen, carminis, n. — song or poem
• corpus, corporis, n. — body
• homo, hominis, m. — man
• labor, laboris, m. — work or labour
• nomen, nominis, n. — name
• pax, pacis, f. — peace
• rex, regis, m. — king
• virtus, virtutis, f. — merit or virtue
• uxor, uxoris, f. — wife

To decline: Since the nominative form of 3rd declension nouns is not fixed, you need to look at the genitive form to find the stem. Simply take the '-is' off the end of a genitive noun to form the stem, and then add whatever ending you wish to form the correct noun. All Latin dictionaries give you both the nominative and genitive forms of a noun, so you will have no difficulties creating whatever form you need.

4th Declension

Type of noun: Masculine, feminine or neuter.

Declining the Fourth Declension:

MASCULINE or FEMININE

Singular

• Nominative: -us (fructus)
• Genitive: -us (fructus)
• Dative: -ui (fructui)
• Accusative: -um (fructum)
• Ablative: -u (fructu)

Plural

• Nominative: -us (fructus)
• Genitive: -uum (fructuum)
• Dative: -ibus (fructibus)
• Accusative: -us (fructus)
• Ablative: -ibus (fructibus)

NEUTER

Singular

• Nominative: -u (cornu)
• Genitive: -us (cornus)
• Dative: -u (cornu)
• Accusative: -u (cornu)
• Ablative: -u (cornu)⁵

Plural

• Nominative: -ua (cornua)
• Genitive: -uum (cornuum)
• Dative: -ibus (cornibus)
• Accusative: -ua (cornua)
• Ablative: -ibus (cornibus)

Vocabulary:

• cornu, -us, n. — horn
• exercitus, -us, m. — army
• fructus, -us, m. — fruit
• genu, -us, n. — knee
• impetus, -us, m. — attack
• manus, -us, f. — hand
• metus, -us, m. — fear or dread
• senatus, -us, m. — Senate⁶
• spiritus, -us, m. — breath or spirit
• versus, -us, m. — line of verse

To decline: As above, simply remove the -us ending from the nominative form to create the stem, and add on whatever ending is appropriate.

5th Declension

Type of noun: Feminine or occasionally masculine.

Declining the Fifth Declension:

MASCULINE or FEMININE

Singular

• Nominative: -es (dies)
• Genitive: -ei (diei)
• Dative: -ei (diei)
• Accusative: -em (diem)
• Ablative: -e (die)

Plural

• Nominative: -es (dies)
• Genitive: -erum (dierum)
• Dative: -ebus (diebus)
• Accusative: -es (dies)
• Ablative: -ebus (diebus)

Vocabulary:

• dies, -ei, m. — day
• effigies, -ei, f. — effigy
• facies, -ei, f. — face or appearance
• fides, -ei, f. — faith or trust
• glacies, -ei, f. — ice
• res, -ei, f. — thing⁷
• res publica, rei publicae, f. — the state
• series, -ei, f. — series or form
• spes, -ei, f. — hope

To decline: As above, simply remove the -es ending from the nominative form to create the stem, and add on whatever ending is appropriate.

A Handy Table

To make things simpler, here is a nice, handy table of all the declension endings, for easy reference.