Meridies venit, et discipuli prandium breve sumunt.

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Breakdown of Meridies venit, et discipuli prandium breve sumunt.

• discipulus: the student
• sumere: to take
• brevis: short

Questions & Answers about Meridies venit, et discipuli prandium breve sumunt.

Why is it meridies and not some other form?

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.

What form is venit, and why does it mean comes here?

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.

Why does Latin say midday comes instead of just it is noon?