How to Read a Dictionary Entry

A Latin dictionary entry is a compact set of instructions for rebuilding an entire paradigm. A noun’s genitive reveals its stem and declension; an adjective’s additional forms reveal its agreement pattern; a verb’s principal parts provide the stems for different tense and voice systems. Grammatical labels also warn you about gender, case government, deponency, or restricted use.

English dictionaries can usually place a single uninflected word at the head of an entry. Latin dictionaries cannot, because the form in your text may look very different from its headword: rēgem appears under rēx, tulī under ferō, and eius under is, ea, id. Reading the whole entry—not merely its translation—is therefore a core reading skill. All invented examples below use neutral Classical Latin unless labelled otherwise.

The lemma is a filing form, not the whole word

The bold or initial form in an entry is the lemma, the conventional form under which a word is filed. For nouns, it is normally the nominative singular; for adjectives, the masculine nominative singular; for verbs, the first-person singular present indicative. An indeclinable word is normally filed under its one form.

The lemma need not be the form most visible in your sentence. To look up an inflected word efficiently, first identify a plausible ending, recover a likely stem, and then predict the lemma. Digital tools may redirect an inflected form automatically, but the sentence still requires you to test that result morphologically rather than accept the first suggested headword.

Rēgem is accusative singular. Removing -em suggests stem rēg-, and the noun entry rēx, rēgis m. confirms it. Eius is a genitive form of pronoun is, ea, id, not a separate lemma eius.

Noun entries: nominative, genitive, gender

A full noun entry gives at least the nominative singular, genitive singular, and gender:

The abbreviated genitive may be printed as -ae, -ī, -is, -ūs, or -eī. Expand it against the nominative rather than treating the dash as a literal form. Third-declension entries usually print the genitive in full because the stem may be hidden by the nominative.

The form corporis leads to corpus, corporis n. The entry supplies neuter gender, which the surface ending -is does not reveal.

Manum is accusative singular of feminine fourth-declension manus. Guessing gender from the nominative ending alone would fail; the label f. is part of the word you must learn.

Dictionary diēs, diēī supplies the fifth-declension pattern. Its gender can vary with sense and context, which a good entry explains rather than reducing to a single unreliable ending rule.

Adjective entries: enough forms to show agreement

Adjectives are listed with the forms needed to reveal their declension and gender endings. A first-and-second-declension adjective may appear as bonus, -a, -um. A two-termination third-declension adjective appears as fortis, -e. A three-termination adjective may appear as ācer, ācris, ācre.

The dash means “repeat the unchanged part,” not “attach this ending mechanically to every form you meet.” Expand bonus, -a, -um as bonus, bona, bonum. From fortis, -e, infer masculine/feminine fortis and neuter forte in the nominative singular, then use the third-declension paradigm for the remaining cases.

Difficilis agrees with feminine nominative singular via. The entry difficilis, -e tells you that masculine and feminine share -is; it does not make the noun masculine.

Neuter nominative singular ācre points back to ācer, ācris, ācre. The nominative forms look different, but the entry displays the relationship explicitly.

Comparatives and highly irregular forms may receive their own entries or cross-references. Follow them. A cross-reference is evidence that the visible form cannot safely be derived by removing an obvious ending.

Verb entries: principal parts and conjugation

The conventional four-part verb entry is exemplified by amō, amāre, amāvī, amātum: first-person singular present, present active infinitive, first-person singular perfect active, and supine in -um. Together they identify the present system, perfect active system, and supine/participial stem. See Principal Parts and Why They Matter for the forms each stem predicts.

Dūxit will not be found under a fictional headword dūxō. The perfect dūxī in the entry dūcō, dūcere, dūxī, ductum reveals perfect stem dūx-; -it marks third-person singular perfect active.

Perfect cēpimus and perfect passive participle captus come from the two non-present stems displayed by capiō, capere, cēpī, captum. Apparent irregularity often reflects an inherited stem alternation or sound development, but the practical task is still to learn the principal parts.

Deponent verbs are normally listed with passive-shaped principal parts, for example loquor, loquī, locūtus sum “speak.” The label dep. means that their ordinary finite forms have deponent meaning, not that every passive-looking form should be translated as an English passive.

Passī sumus belongs under deponent patior, patī, passus sum. It is masculine plural because the implied speakers are masculine or mixed; an all-female group would say passae sumus.

Labels and construction notes are part of the entry

Common abbreviations include m., f., n. (gender), tr. and intr. (transitive and intransitive), dep. (deponent), impers. (impersonal), and indecl. (indeclinable). Dictionaries also label chronology and register with terms such as archaic/early, poetic, post-Classical/late, and ecclesiastical. The exact abbreviations and period boundaries vary by dictionary, so consult its front matter instead of assuming that every editor uses the same code.

Case requirements matter as much as glosses. The entry ūtor, ūtī, ūsus sum “use” notes that its complement is ablative. A preposition such as in is listed with accusative and ablative meanings separately. An adjective may also govern a genitive, dative, or ablative.

English use takes a direct object, but Latin ūtor governs the ablative hōc gladiō. The construction note prevents a fluent-looking English calque.

Macrons, enclitics, and editorial conventions

This guide marks pedagogical vowel quantity: mālum “apple” differs from malum “evil” or neuter “bad.” Ancient texts did not normally use modern macrons, and dictionaries differ in how fully they mark hidden quantity. Never infer that an unmarked online text proves a vowel short.

When lookup fails, check for an enclitic. Remove -que “and,” -ve “or,” or question -ne before searching: populusque is populus + -que; venīsne? is venīs + -ne. Do not remove a final sequence mechanically unless the resulting form and sentence make grammatical sense.

Here quoque is an independent adverb, while -ne is attached to venīs. A dictionary search begins with veniō, recovered through the present form and infinitive venīre.

Common Mistakes

1. Searching only for the exact surface form

2. Ignoring a noun's gender label

3. Inventing a regular perfect instead of reading the entry

4. Copying English case government

5. Translating a deponent perfect as passive

Key Takeaways

Treat a dictionary entry as compressed morphology and syntax. Read every supplied form, gender label, principal part, register tag, and case requirement. Recover the lemma from the Latin form first; then use the entry to test the analysis and select a contextually appropriate meaning.