Constantia et industria multa mala superant.

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Breakdown of Constantia et industria multa mala superant.

• multus: many
• constantia: the steadfastness
• industria: the diligence

Questions & Answers about Constantia et industria multa mala superant.

What case are constantia and industria?

They are both nominative singular, which is the case normally used for the subject of the sentence.

• constantia = steadfastness / perseverance / constancy
• industria = diligence / industry

Even though there are two subject words, each one is individually singular. Together they form a compound subject: constantia et industria.

Why do constantia and industria end in -a? Doesn’t -a often mean plural?

Here -a is the normal nominative singular ending of many first-declension nouns.

So:

• constantia = singular
• industria = singular

A native English speaker often learns early that Latin -a can sometimes be plural, but that depends on the declension and the word’s form. In this sentence, these are first-declension nouns, so -a is singular, not plural.

Why is the verb superant plural?

Because the sentence has a compound subject: constantia et industria = steadfastness and diligence.

Two singular nouns joined by et normally take a plural verb in Latin, just as in English: