Word
Mercatrix pruna et cerasa vendit.
Meaning
The female merchant sells plums and cherries.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Mercatrix pruna et cerasa vendit.
et
and
vendere
to sell
mercatrix
the female merchant
prunum
the plum
Questions & Answers about Mercatrix pruna et cerasa vendit.
Why is mercatrix used here instead of mercator?
Mercatrix is the feminine form, meaning a female merchant or a female seller.
- mercator = male merchant / merchant
- mercatrix = female merchant
So the sentence is specifically talking about a woman. This is a vocabulary choice, not something caused by the verb.
What form is mercatrix?
Mercatrix is nominative singular.
That tells you it is the subject of the sentence: the person doing the selling.
It is also a third-declension noun, even though it refers to a woman. In Latin, grammatical declension and natural gender are not the same thing.
Why does vendit end in -t?
The -t shows that the verb is third person singular in the present tense.
So vendit means:
- he sells
- she sells
- it sells
In this sentence, because the subject is mercatrix, we understand it as she sells.
Why is there no separate word for she?