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Latin

/ˈlæt.ɪn/adjective, noun

Latin is an adjective meaning “Of or relating to Latin: the language spoken in ancient Rome and other cities of Latium” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled L-A-T-I-N and has 2 syllables, and it appears 30 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does Latin mean?

adjective

  1. 1

    Of or relating to Latin: the language spoken in ancient Rome and other cities of Latium.

  2. 2

    Of or relating to the script of the language spoken in ancient Rome and many modern alphabets.

  3. 3

    Of or relating to ancient Rome or its Empire.

  4. 4

    Of or relating to Latium (modern Lazio), the region around Rome.

  5. 5

    Of or relating to the customs and people descended from the ancient Romans and their Empire.

  6. 6

    Of or from Latin America or of Latin American culture.

  7. 7

    Roman Catholic; of or pertaining to the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church.

noun

  1. 1

    A person native to ancient Rome or its Empire.

  2. 2

    A member of an Italic tribe that included the early inhabitants of the city of Rome, and from about 1000 BCE inhabited the region known as Old Latium.

  3. 3

    A person from one of the modern European countries (including Italy, Spain etc.) whose language is descended from Latin.

  4. 4

    A person from Latin America.

  5. 5

    A person adhering to Roman Catholic practice.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce Latin?

  • UK /ˈlæt.ɪn/
  • US /ˈlæt.ɪn/
  • US [ˈlæt.n̩]

Latin has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-Latin.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Grendelkhan-Latin.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of Latin

  • Latins plural
  • Latin@s plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is Latin?

Latin appears 30 times per million words in written English, the 3,114th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Latin in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchlatin (of the language)
Germanlateinisch (of the language), römisch (of ancient Rome), latinisch (of Latium), romanisch (of descendants from ancient Romans), lateinamerikanisch (of/from Latin America), Römer (person native to ancient Rome or its Empire)
Portugueselatino (of the language), romano (of ancient Rome), latino-americano (of/from Latin America)
Spanishlatín (of the language), romano (of ancient Rome), latino (of the script)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does Latin come from?

From Middle English Latyn, Latyne, Latin, from Old French latin, latyn, from Latin latīnus, from Latium (“the region around Rome”) + -īnus (adjective suffix). Displaced or merged with Old English Lǣden. Doublet of Ladin and Ladino.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).