Questions & Answers about Puer post prandium otium breve cupit.
Why is puer the subject, and what form is it?
Puer is nominative singular, so it is the subject of the sentence: the boy.
A beginner might expect a second-declension masculine noun to end in -us, but puer is one of the common exceptions. Its dictionary form is puer, pueri, meaning boy.
So here:
- puer = the boy / a boy
- it is nominative singular, which is the normal case for the subject
Why does post take prandium in that form?
Because post is a preposition that takes the accusative case.
So:
- post = after
- prandium = accusative singular of prandium
Together, post prandium means after lunch or after the meal.
This is something worth memorizing: many Latin prepositions regularly take a specific case, and post takes the accusative.
What does prandium mean exactly?
Prandium means a late morning meal, lunch, or midday meal.
In many simple textbook sentences, it is easiest to understand it as lunch.
It is a neuter noun, and in this sentence it appears as , which is both: