Octava puella legit.

The eighth girl reads.

Breakdown of Octava puella legit.

• puella: the girl
• legere: to read
• octavus: eighth

Questions & Answers about Octava puella legit.

Why is octava feminine instead of octavus?

Because it describes puella, and puella is a feminine noun.

In Latin, adjectives must agree with the nouns they describe in:

• gender
• number
• case

So:

• puella = feminine, singular, nominative
• octava must also be feminine, singular, nominative

That is why you get octava puella, not octavus puella.

What exactly is octava here?

Octava is an ordinal adjective. That means it gives a position in a sequence: first, second, third, eighth, and so on.

So octava means eighth.

It is not the number eight.
If you wanted the cardinal number eight, that would be octo.

So:

• octo puellae = eight girls
• octava puella = the eighth girl

What case is puella, and how can I tell?

Puella is nominative singular.

You can tell because:

• the ending -a is the normal nominative singular ending for many first-declension nouns