Breakdown of Meridies venit, et discipuli prandium breve sumunt.
Questions & Answers about Meridies venit, et discipuli prandium breve sumunt.
Meridies is the subject of the first clause, so it is in the nominative singular.
- meridies = midday, noon
- It is a fifth-declension noun.
- In this sentence, meridies venit means literally midday comes.
So Latin is treating midday as the thing doing the action of coming.
Venit is third person singular present active indicative of venio, meaning come.
So:
- venit = he/she/it comes
Since the subject is meridies (midday/noon), the sense is midday comes or more naturally noon arrives.
A learner may notice that venit can also sometimes mean came in certain contexts, because the same form can be either present or perfect in some verbs. But with venio, the perfect is normally vēnit with a long e. In ordinary classroom Latin, this sentence is understood as present tense: comes / arrives.