Omnes cives censum profiteri debent.

Omnes means all and agrees with cives.

Both words are:

• nominative
• plural
• masculine (or masculine/feminine in form, but here referring to citizens)

So omnes cives means all citizens.

Latin adjectives have to agree with the nouns they describe in case, number, and gender, so omnes matches cives.

Cives is the subject of debent, so it is in the nominative plural.

The verb debent means they ought / they must, and the people doing that action are the citizens, so cives is the subject.

A learner may notice that cives can also be accusative plural in some contexts, but here the sentence structure makes it clear that it is nominative:

• debent is plural
• omnes cives naturally goes with that verb as the subject
• censum is the object instead

Because its subject, omnes cives, is plural.

Debent is the 3rd person plural form of debeo, debere, meaning to owe, and by extension to ought or must.

So:

• debet = he/she/it must
• debent = they must

Since all citizens is plural, the verb must also be plural.

Because it depends on debent.

Latin often uses debeo + infinitive to express obligation:

• debet venire = he must come
• debent facere = they must do

So in this sentence:

• debent = must
• profiteri = to declare / to register

Together, profiteri debent means must declare or must register.

Profiteri is the present infinitive of profiteor, profiteri, which is a deponent verb.

A deponent verb:

• has passive-looking forms
• but an active meaning

So even though profiteri looks like it might be passive, it actually means to declare, to state openly, or in this context to register / make a declaration.

That is very common in Latin, and learners often have to get used to it.

Because it is the direct object of profiteri.

The citizens are declaring the census or, more naturally in English, their census registration / property declaration.

So:

• profiteri = to declare
• censum = the census declaration as the thing being declared

The accusative is the normal case for the direct object of a verb.

It is a set expression connected with the Roman census.

A very literal translation might sound strange in English, because census in modern English usually means a government count of the population. In Roman Latin, census could involve a formal registration of a citizen's status and property.

So censum profiteri means something like:

• to declare for the census
• to register one’s property/status
• to make one’s census declaration

That is why the phrase may be translated more naturally than word-for-word.

Latin often leaves that unstated when it is obvious from the context.

English might say:

• All citizens must declare their census registration

But Latin can simply say:

• Omnes cives censum profiteri debent

The idea that the citizens are declaring their own census information is understood automatically.

Latin does not always need a possessive like suum unless it is useful for emphasis or clarity.

Yes. Latin word order is much freer than English word order because the endings show the grammatical relationships.

This sentence could be rearranged in several ways, for example:

• Cives omnes censum profiteri debent
• Censum omnes cives profiteri debent
• Omnes cives debent censum profiteri

These all keep roughly the same core meaning, though the emphasis may change.

The given order is perfectly normal:

• Omnes cives first introduces the subject
• censum profiteri gives the action
• debent at the end is a very common Latin placement for the finite verb

Either can work, depending on context.

Debeo originally means to owe, and from that it develops the sense to be obliged to. So it can mean:

• must
• ought to
• have to

In a legal or official context like this one, must is often the best English choice, because it sounds like a requirement rather than just good advice.

You would usually look them up as follows:

• omnes → omnis, omne = all, every
• cives → civis, civis = citizen
• censum → census, census = census, registration, valuation
• profiteri → profiteor, profiteri, professus sum = declare openly, profess
• debent → debeo, debere, debui, debitus = owe; ought; must

This is useful because the form in the sentence is often not the form you would find as the main dictionary entry.