Using a Latin-English Dictionary

This may seem like an odd heading, but don't skip it!  Learning how to use a Latin-English dictionary is going be essential for your Latin-learning survival.  At some point, you're going to run into a word that you don't recognize.  You may not even be able to tell what case it's in, or whether it's a noun or an adjective.  That's when you need to know how to look up a Latin word in a dictionary.

First off, you have to know what form of the word to look up.  You'll have noticed by now, with all this talk about endings, that Latin words have beginnings that stay the same when you decline or conjugate them.  This is the stem of the word, and being able to recognize the stem when you see a Latin word is the first part of learning to use a dictionary.

This may seem obvious to you.  Whether or not you realize it, you've been separating the stems in order to decline and conjugate words.  For the noun puella, for instance, you've been separating puell- in order to change the case endings.  The same goes for adjectives, but with greater variety.  For verbs, look at amo for instance: you've been separating am-, and to this simple stem, you've attached what may seem like countless endings.

So you've got the first step: simply find the stem.  But once you have puell- and am-, what do you do with them?  Well, first you need to know how to make the form of the word that will appear in the dictionary.

When you look up a Latin verb in a dictionary, you first see the word, followed by a list of endings or other forms.  This sequence of information is designed to give you all the information you need in order to know what the word does and how it's going to look in a sentence.  This information varies depending on what part of speech the word is.

Nouns

You can probably guess how nouns are going to work here.  The entry for a noun will always be nominative singular. The rest of the entry will look like this:

[Nom. Sing.], -[Gen. Sing. ending], [Gender] 
Example: puella, -ae, f.

Here's an example from Cassell's Latin Dictionary:

This is a feminine noun, like in the typed example.  In parenthesis, you'll see the Latin word from which this word originates.  You'll also notice that Cassell provides some examples of the word used in phrases, followed by abbreviations like "Cic."  These are examples of the word used in ancient texts.  They extract the phrase and include an abbreviation to indicate the author ("Cic." for Cicero, "Liv." for Livy, etc.).  There is a wealth of information that you can find in dictionaries like this one - and don't worry, there's always a guide to the abbreviations at the front of the book.

In some dictionaries, the genitive singular will even be spelled out completely.  Plus, if there are forms of the word that don't follow the usual conventions, those will be listed too.  The idea is that you get all the essential information in one line, and all the extra goodies are thrown in afterwards.

Adjectives

Because adjectives can have multiple genders, they also have more forms.  What's really important for an adjective is figuring out which declension it's in - that's the info that you need from a dictionary entry.  Remember that each adjective can have one, two, or three endings, depending on whether or not they have different endings in different genders.  This is where the dictionary entries will vary.  It's the first word that you want to remember: for all adjectives, this will be whatever form is used to make the masculine.

Adjectives that have different endings for all the genders are the most common.  This is what they'll look like in a dictionary:

[Nom. Sing. - M.], -[Nom. Sing. ending, - F.], -[Nom. Sing. ending, - N.]
Example: magnus, -a, -um

For adjectives with two endings, you'll see the masculine/feminine form first, followed by the neuter:

[Nom. Sing. - M/F], -[Nom. Sing. ending, - N.]
Example: fortis, -e

Adjectives that have the same endings for all genders will have entries that look similar to nouns.  Just remember that a gender will never be listed, because adjectives can be any gender.

[Nom. Sing.], -[Gen. Sing. ending]
Example: potens, -entis

Remember, sometimes you'll be given the whole word rather than just the ending, which can be helpful, and you should always be given the irregular forms of a word, if it has any.

And here's an example from Cassell's:

As you can see, this adjective has endings for all three genders.  This is the most common type of entry for a Latin adjective.  You'll also notice that this dictionary provides, in parenthesis, the associated noun.  In Cassell's the other entries for adjectives follow the formula as described.  Adjectives with two sets of endings, one for M/F and one for N:

...and adjectives with one set of endings for all genders:  

And that's it for adjectives.  Based on the information that the dictionary gives you, you should be able to tell whether or not the endings are different for different genders - then all you need are some grammar tables (or your memory) to work out all the forms.

Verbs

A verb's listing in a dictionary is always going to include a sequence of forms known as the Principal Parts.  These forms will give you all the information you need in order to conjugate the verb into every other possible form it can take.  There are four, and here's the sequence:

[1st P. S. Present Act. Ind.], [Infinitive], [1st P. S. Perfect Act. Ind.], [Perfect Passive Participle]
Example: laudo, laudare, laudavi, laudatus -a -um

That's the "first person singular present active indicative" that you start off with, and yeah it's a mouthful, but with all the drills you've doubtless been doing, you've been learning a greater variety of forms than you may realize.

If you're not sure which forms all of these are, they would translate into English as: I praise, to praise, I praised, (having been) praised.  Remember that the perfect passive forms of verbs use a participle paired with a form of sum.  That's what the fourth principal part is, and that's why it will have an entry that looks like an adjective - because it behaves like one grammatically.

In many dictionaries, you won't be given the entire set of principle parts:

This 3rd conjugation verb in Cassell's is included without the infinitive.  Instead, you're given the number "3," which indicates that this verb is in the 3rd conjugation.  That means that you have all the information you need to completely conjugate the verb using a grammar table, if needed.  If there are any irregular forms, they'll be provided too:

Here Cassell's provides some alternate forms for the perfect and the participle, so you'll know what you're working with if you come across either.  In Cassell's, if you're working with a 1st conjugation verb with no irregular endings, you'll get just one form and an indication of the conjugation:

Even with this amount of information, you're given everything you need to find all the forms of the word.  It's pretty simple, once you get the hang of it.

Finally, here's a Latin word that can appear as a noun, an adjective, or a verb.  All the forms are listed together, so you compare how the entries and the information provided differs for each part of speech:

Now that you're armed with Latin grammatical forms and a Latin dictionary, you're all set to conquer Lingua Latina.  Of course, you might be tempted to resort to Whitaker's Words - and I'll be the first to admit that it's a useful program.  However, you're going to have a difficult time learning vocabulary if you're always just popping the word into Whitaker's.  In Lingua Latina, you'll always be given enough context and clues to work out the meaning.  And if you're really stuck, or you want to double-check, it's best to use a dictionary that engages your mind a bit more.  That's why I think this section is so important!

And that's that.  It's finally time for the best part: reading Latin!

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