Haec aetas gravis est.

Here haec means this.

It is in the feminine nominative singular form because it describes aetas, and Latin adjectives/demonstratives must agree with the noun they modify in gender, number, and case.

• aetas = feminine
• singular
• nominative (because it is the subject)

So Latin uses haec aetas = this age / this period / this stage of life.

In Latin, a noun’s gender is not determined only by its ending. While many feminine nouns do end in -a, not all of them do.

aetas is a third-declension feminine noun. Its dictionary form is:

• aetas, aetatis = age, lifetime, period, era

So even though it ends in -as, it is still feminine, and that is why haec agrees with it in the feminine form.

aetas is nominative singular here.

You can tell because it is the subject of the sentence: it is the thing being described as gravis.

The structure is:

• haec aetas = the subject
• gravis = predicate adjective
• est = is

So the sentence means that this age/period is serious/heavy/burdensome.

gravis is the nominative singular feminine form here, agreeing with aetas.

But gravis is a third-declension adjective, and in this type of adjective the masculine and feminine nominative singular are the same:

• masculine: gravis
• feminine: gravis
• neuter: grave

So the form gravis can be masculine or feminine depending on the noun it goes with. Here it is feminine because it describes aetas.

gravis has a range of meanings, including:

• heavy
• serious
• weighty
• burdensome
• severe

In this sentence, the exact English wording depends on context. Possible translations include:

• This stage of life is difficult.
• This age is serious.
• This period is burdensome.

So gravis often carries more emotional or abstract weight than just literal physical heaviness.

Yes. est is the third-person singular present tense of sum, meaning to be.

So:

• est = is

In this sentence it links the subject haec aetas with the description gravis, just like English is does:

• Haec aetas gravis est.
• This age is serious/burdensome.

Latin does not have articles like English the and a/an.

So aetas can mean:

• age
• an age
• the age
• a period
• the period

The exact choice in English depends on context. In this sentence, haec already makes the noun specific, so this age or this period is the most natural translation.

Yes. Latin word order is much more flexible than English word order because the endings show the grammatical relationships.

So all of these could be possible Latin orders:

• Haec aetas gravis est
• Gravis est haec aetas
• Aetas haec gravis est

They all basically mean the same thing, though the emphasis may shift slightly.

The given order is a clear, straightforward way to say This age is burdensome/serious.

Because aetas is already the subject.

In English, we might say:

• This age is serious
• or sometimes It is serious

But Latin does not need an extra pronoun like it here. The noun aetas already tells us what est refers to.

Latin also often leaves out subject pronouns when they are unnecessary.

A common classroom pronunciation would be roughly:

• haec = hike or haik
• aetas = eye-tahs
• gravis = GRAH-wis
• est = est

A more classical-sounding approximation is:

haik EYE-tahs GRAH-wis est

A few helpful notes:

• ae is usually pronounced like English eye
• v in Classical Latin sounds like w
• stress in aetas falls on the first syllable
• stress in gravis falls on the first syllable