Duo pisciculi ad polypum adnant.

Duo is the masculine nominative plural form of the numeral two.

It has to match pisciculi, which is masculine plural and is the subject of the sentence. So:

• duo = two for masculine nouns
• pisciculi = masculine plural

Latin numerals are sometimes irregular, and two is one of the ones that changes form:

• masculine: duo
• feminine: duae
• neuter: duo

So duo pisciculi means two little fish.

Pisciculi is the nominative plural of pisciculus, which means little fish.

It is a diminutive form, built from piscis (fish). A diminutive often adds the idea of smallness or endearment, so pisciculus is not just fish, but small fish or little fish.

In this sentence, pisciculi is the subject, the ones doing the action.

Because it is in the accusative singular.

The preposition ad takes the accusative case when it means to, toward, or up to. Since the fish are moving toward the octopus, Latin uses:

• ad polypum = toward the octopus

So polypum is the object of the preposition ad.

Here ad means to or toward.

It shows the direction of motion:

• ad polypum = toward the octopus

This is a very common Latin pattern:

• ad
  • accusative = movement toward something

So the sentence is describing where the fish are swimming.

It can feel repetitive from an English point of view, but it is perfectly understandable in Latin.

The verb adnant already contains the prefix ad-, which gives the sense of toward or up to. Then ad polypum names the destination more explicitly.

So the sentence is doing two related things:

• adnant = they swim toward / swim up to
• ad polypum = toward the octopus

Latin often allows this kind of reinforcement, where a prefixed verb and a prepositional phrase point in the same direction.

Adnant is:

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

It comes from adnare, meaning to swim to, swim toward, or swim up to.

So adnant means they swim toward or they are swimming toward.

Because the subject is plural, pisciculi, the verb is plural too.

You can tell from its form and its agreement with the verb.

• pisciculi is nominative plural
• adnant is third person plural

In Latin, subjects are normally in the nominative case, and verbs agree with their subjects in number. Since pisciculi is nominative plural and the verb is plural, they go together naturally.

Meanwhile:

• polypum is accusative singular
• it follows ad
• so it belongs to the prepositional phrase, not to the subject

No. Latin word order is much freer than English word order because the endings carry so much grammatical information.

So Duo pisciculi ad polypum adnant is fine, but other orders could also work, for example:

• Pisciculi duo ad polypum adnant
• Ad polypum duo pisciculi adnant
• Duo pisciculi adnant ad polypum

These can sound slightly different in emphasis, but the basic meaning stays the same because the cases and verb ending make the relationships clear.

Because Latin does not have articles like English the or a/an.

So a Latin noun by itself can mean:

• a fish
• the fish
• sometimes just fish

The exact sense depends on context.

So polypum could be understood as an octopus or the octopus, depending on the situation. The same is true for pisciculi.

Yes, that would be possible.

• natant = they swim
• ad polypum = toward the octopus

So natant ad polypum would also mean they swim toward the octopus.

Using adnant packs the idea of toward into the verb itself. So the given sentence is a bit more compact in its verbal meaning, even though it still also includes ad polypum.

It can be, especially in older or literary vocabulary, though the exact ancient reference may be broader than the modern everyday English word octopus.

The word comes from Greek, and in Latin it is treated as a noun whose accusative singular here is polypum.

For learning the sentence, the important thing is:

• dictionary form: polypus
• accusative singular: polypum
• after ad, the accusative is expected

So even if the meaning has already been given to you, grammatically polypum is simply the destination after ad.