Spectatores comoedum exsibilant.

Latin usually shows this through case endings, not mainly through word order.

• spectatores is nominative plural, so it is the subject: the people doing the action.
• comoedum is accusative singular, so it is the direct object: the person receiving the action.
• exsibilant is they hiss.

So the grammar tells you that the spectators are hissing the comedian/actor, not the other way around.

Spectatores is nominative plural of spectator, spectatoris (masculine), meaning spectator or member of the audience.

It is a third-declension noun. Its forms include:

• singular nominative: spectator
• plural nominative: spectatores

Because it is nominative plural, it fits as the subject of the plural verb exsibilant.

It is in the accusative singular because it is the direct object of the verb exsibilant.

The base noun is comoedus, meaning comic actor, comedian, or sometimes simply actor in a comic context. As a second-declension masculine noun:

• nominative singular: comoedus
• accusative singular: comoedum

So comoedum means the comedian/actor as the one being hissed at.

Exsibilant is:

• present tense
• active voice
• indicative mood
• third person plural

So it means they hiss or they are hissing.

Its dictionary form is exsibilo, exsibilare, a first-conjugation verb.

The verb is plural because the subject, spectatores, is plural.

In Latin, verbs agree with their subjects in person and number:

• spectator exsibilat = the spectator hisses
• spectatores exsibilant = the spectators hiss

So the ending -ant tells you the subject is they.

Classical Latin has no definite article and no indefinite article in the way English does.

So Latin can say simply:

• spectatores = spectators, the spectators
• comoedum = a comedian, the comedian

You decide from context whether English should use a/an, the, or no article at all.

Yes. Latin word order is much more flexible than English word order because the endings already show the grammatical roles.

For example, these can mean the same basic thing:

• Spectatores comoedum exsibilant
• Comoedum spectatores exsibilant
• Exsibilant spectatores comoedum

The difference is usually one of emphasis, not basic meaning.
In the original sentence, the order is straightforward: subject – object – verb.

It often has the sense of hissing at someone or even hissing someone off the stage.

The verb is built from sibilo (to hiss, whistle) with the prefix ex-, which can add the idea of out. So in performance contexts, exsibilare can suggest not just making a hissing sound, but driving a performer away by hissing.

So depending on context, English might translate it as:

• hiss
• hiss at
• hiss off the stage

Yes. Comoedus is a word borrowed from Greek, which is why its spelling looks slightly less familiar than some basic Latin nouns.

Even so, in Latin it behaves like a normal second-declension masculine noun:

• comoedus
• comoedum
• comoedi, etc.

So although its origin is Greek, its grammar here is perfectly regular Latin.

A simple classroom-style pronunciation would be:

• spectatores: spek-ta-TO-res
• comoedum: ko-MOY-dum or ko-MEH-dum, depending on pronunciation system
• exsibilant: ek-si-BI-lant

A few helpful points:

• c is always hard, like k
• vowels matter, because endings show grammar
• exsibilant begins with ex-, so the word starts with a clear eks- sound

If you are using reconstructed Classical pronunciation, your teacher may give more exact values for oe and vowel length.

A learner would normally memorize these:

• spectator, spectatoris m. = spectator
• comoedus, comoedi m. = comic actor, comedian
• exsibilo, exsibilare, exsibilavi, exsibilatus = hiss at, hiss off

This is useful because the forms in the sentence are not always the forms you would look up in a dictionary:

• spectatores → look up spectator
• comoedum → look up comoedus
• exsibilant → look up exsibilo