Tonsor ungues subsecat.

Tonsor is nominative singular, which is the case typically used for the subject of a sentence.

You can also tell it is the subject because the verb subsecat is third person singular: he/she/it trims. A singular subject is needed, and tonsor fits that role perfectly.

Also, tonsor means barber, so it makes good sense as the doer of the action.

Here ungues is accusative plural, the direct object of subsecat.

The basic noun is unguis, meaning nail or claw. Its forms include:

• unguis = nominative singular
• unguem = accusative singular
• ungues = nominative plural or accusative plural

In this sentence, the barber is doing something to the nails, so ungues is the object: nails.

By form alone, ungues could be either nominative plural or accusative plural.

But in this sentence it cannot be the subject, because the verb is subsecat, which is singular, not plural. If ungues were the subject, you would expect a plural verb.

So the grammar tells us that ungues must be the object here.

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

So tonsor can mean:

• the barber
• a barber

And ungues can mean:

• the nails
• nails

Which English article is best depends on context.

The ending -t shows that subsecat is third person singular present active indicative.

So it means:

• he trims
• she trims
• it trims

Since the subject is tonsor, the natural translation is the barber trims.

This is a good example of how Latin verbs often include the subject information inside the verb ending, so a separate word for he is not necessary.

It comes from subseco, subsecare, meaning to cut off, clip, or trim.

It is a first-conjugation verb. In the present tense, first-conjugation verbs commonly have:

• -o for I
• -as for you
• -at for he/she/it

So:

• subseco = I trim
• subsecas = you trim
• subsecat = he/she/it trims

The prefix sub- often adds the idea of under, from below, or closely.

So subsecare is not just a general cut, but often something more like:

• clip
• trim
• cut close
• cut away a small part

That is why it fits well with nails.

Not as much as it would be in English.

Latin word order is fairly flexible because the endings show what each word is doing. So this sentence could be rearranged in different ways and still mean essentially the same thing.

For example, these would still be understandable Latin:

• Tonsor ungues subsecat
• Ungues tonsor subsecat
• Subsecat tonsor ungues

However, word order can affect emphasis. The version you have is quite natural, with the subject first and the verb at the end, which is a very common Latin pattern.

Because the Latin sentence does not specify whose nails they are.

Ungues simply means nails. It could mean the barber trims:

• someone else’s nails
• his own nails
• nails in general

If Latin wanted to make that explicit, it would need extra words, such as a possessive adjective or another noun.

Tonsor means barber or hair-cutter.

It is related to the idea of shearing or cutting hair. In Roman life, a tonsor was a barber, and barbers could do more than just cut hair, so trimming nails in this context is not strange.

Grammatically, tonsor is a third-declension noun.

By itself, ungues can mean nails in a general sense, and in other contexts it can even mean claws.

This sentence does not explicitly say fingernails or toenails. Context decides. Because the subject is a barber, many learners would naturally think of fingernails, but the Latin form itself does not force that interpretation.