Cilium oculum tegit.

They are:

• cilium, cilii, n.
• oculus, oculi, m.
• tego, tegere, texi, tectum

This matters because Latin dictionaries usually list:

• nouns in the nominative singular
• verbs in the first-person singular present plus the infinitive

So even though the sentence has oculum, you would look it up under oculus.

Because oculum is the direct object form, called the accusative singular.

• oculus = eye as a subject
• oculum = eye as a direct object

Since the eye is the thing being covered, Latin puts it in the accusative: oculum.

English usually shows this by word order. Latin often shows it by the noun ending.

Because the same ending can mean different things for different nouns.

• cilium is a second-declension neuter noun. In neuter nouns, the nominative singular and accusative singular are the same form, so both are cilium.
• oculum is a second-declension masculine accusative singular form of oculus.

So the shared ending -um does not mean they are in the same case.

Because oculum can only be the accusative singular of oculus, so it has to be the object.

That leaves cilium as the subject.

In other words:

• cilium = the thing doing the covering
• oculum = the thing being covered

If eye were the subject, Latin would use oculus, not oculum.

Tegit is:

• present tense
• active voice
• indicative mood
• third person singular

So it means covers or is covering.

By itself, tegit could mean he covers, she covers, or it covers.
Here, cilium tells you what that third-person singular subject is.

Because Latin normally has no articles.

So Latin often leaves English translators to decide whether to use:

• the
• a/an
• or sometimes no article at all

That means a short Latin sentence can be more flexible than its English translation. The exact English article usually comes from context.

Because Latin verb endings already tell you the person and number.

The ending -it in tegit tells you the verb is third person singular, so Latin does not need a separate subject pronoun like it.

Latin often leaves subject pronouns out unless they are needed for emphasis or contrast.

Yes. Cilium oculum tegit is a very normal Latin order:

• subject
• object
• verb

Latin often places the verb at the end.

But Latin word order is more flexible than English word order, because case endings do much of the grammatical work. So you could change the order for emphasis, style, or rhythm. For example:

• Cilium tegit oculum
• Oculum cilium tegit

The basic meaning would stay the same, though the emphasis might shift.

• cilium: second declension, neuter
• oculus: second declension, masculine
• tego, tegere: third conjugation

This is useful because once you know the declension or conjugation, you can predict many other forms.

In a classical-style pronunciation, roughly:

KIL-ee-um OK-u-lum TEG-it

A few helpful points:

• c is always hard, like k
• g is always hard, as in get
• the stress falls on the first syllable of each word:
  • CIlium
  • Oculum
  • TEgit