Clepsydra tempus metitur.

You know from the cases, not mainly from the word order.

• clepsydra is nominative singular, so it is the subject.
• tempus is accusative singular, so it is the direct object.

So the sentence means that the clepsydra is doing the action, and time is what gets measured.

That is a very common question. Tempus is a third-declension neuter noun, and neuter nouns follow an important rule:

• nominative and accusative are always the same
• this is true in both singular and plural

So:

• nominative singular: tempus
• accusative singular: tempus

Even though the form looks the same, in this sentence it is the object, so it is accusative.

Because metitur comes from a deponent verb.

A deponent verb has:

• passive-looking forms
• but an active meaning

So although metitur ends in -tur, which often looks passive to beginners, it actually means he/she/it measures.

Here the subject is clepsydra, so metitur means it measures.

The dictionary form is metior, meaning measure.

Its main forms are often given as:

• metior
• metiri
• mensus sum

In this sentence, metitur is:

• present tense
• third person singular
• deponent

So it means he/she/it measures.

Yes, Latin could change the order.

This sentence is:

• Clepsydra = subject
• tempus = object
• metitur = verb

That gives a very normal Latin order: subject-object-verb.

But Latin word order is more flexible than English because the endings show each word’s role. So these could still mean basically the same thing:

• Tempus clepsydra metitur
• Metitur clepsydra tempus
• Tempus metitur clepsydra

The main difference would usually be emphasis, not the basic meaning.

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

So clepsydra can mean:

• a water clock
• the water clock

And tempus can mean:

• time
• sometimes the time, depending on context

English has to choose an article, but Latin usually leaves that to the reader or listener to infer from the situation.

Clepsydra means a water clock, a device that measures time by the flow of water.

It is a Greek loanword used in Latin. Grammatically, it behaves like a first-declension feminine noun.

So here clepsydra is a singular feminine subject: the water clock or a water clock.

Metitur can be parsed as:

• third person
• singular
• present
• indicative
• deponent

That means it translates as he measures, she measures, or it measures, depending on the subject.

In this sentence, since clepsydra is the subject, the best translation is it measures.

In a simple classroom-style pronunciation, you could say it roughly as:

KLEP-si-dra TEM-pus me-TEE-tur

A few helpful notes:

• c is always hard, as in cat
• y in clepsydra is a Greek sound not native to English, so many learners approximate it with i
• metitur is stressed on TEE

So a practical learner pronunciation is:

KLEP-si-dra TEM-pus me-TEE-tur