Of or relating to Latin: thelanguage spoken in ancientRome and other cities ofLatium.
1948, L. E. Elliott-Binns,The Beginnings of Western Christendom, page257:
Africa was the natural leader because there the number of Christians who were of Roman origin andLatin speech was probably far greater than in so cosmopolitan a city as Rome.
Of or relating to thescript of the language spoken in ancient Rome and many modernalphabets.
1913, Oscar Browning,A General History of the World, page151:
From the Campagna and theLatin hills, the flame of rebellion spread to Antium and Terracina, and to the most remote allies of the Romans, the cities of the Campanian plains.
Of or relating to thecustoms andpeopledescended from the ancient Romans and their Empire.
2002, Dean Foster,The Global Etiquette Guide to Mexico and Latin America, page11:
Therefore, although Portugal is aLatin culture, the significant African influence in Brazil creates a culture that cannot be defined simply asLatin; consequently, Brazilians prefer to define themselves as South American[…]
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1799, Edward Dubois,A Piece of Family Biography, volume II,page20:
Supper being over, the lawyer took his leave, and the doctor began toſound the learned clerkreſpecting his proficiency in thedead languages. "As todead languages," replied theſchoolmafter, "I was once avaſt prettyſcholar indeed, butwant of exercise has made me mainſlack—I can't get over my ground as Iuſed to do. Then as tothe t'other dead fellow, I could nevergreek it at all, that's flat. And, Lordbleſs you! myLatin is of no moreuſe to me here than—than—" Here heſtuck for want of aſimile; when Mr. Le Dupe helped him out byſaying, "that it is to a young man at college, where it isconſidered a pedanticinſult, and an unpardonable bore, to utter aLatinſentence."
1999, Karl Strecker, transl. by Robert B. Palmer,Introduction to Medieval Latin: English Translation and Revision, 2nd ed. (2nd reprint of the ed. Dublin/Zürich 1971 (Berlin 1957)),Weidmann: Zürich & Hildesheim, p. 29:
To Hall [Robert A. Hall, Jr.], the development would be something as follows: Latin > Proto-Romance (dated late Republic and Early Empire) > Proto-Continental Romance > Proto-Italo-Western Romance (to which Hall would limit the term "Vulgar Latin") > Proto-Western Romance > Proto-Gallo Romance, etc. Each of these main divisions splits off into further languages: Latin > Classical Latin; Proto-Romance > Proto-Southern Romance > Sardinian, Lucianian, Sicilian; Proto-Continental Romance > Proto-Eastern Romance > Proto-Balkan Romance, etc.
When the Christian Church rose in stature in the Dark Ages, its adoption ofLatin as the official language assured its eternal life.
2010, Elizabeth Heimbach,A Roman Map Workbook, page134:
Like Copernicus and Galileo, Johannes Kepler was a renowned astronomer who wrote inLatin.
2025 June 19, Rami Kaminski, “How Outsiders Can Thrive in a World That Wants Them to Fit In”, inNext Big Idea Club[1]:
I call them otroverts—fromotro, the Spanish word for “other,” andvertere,Latin for “to turn.” Otroverts are people who turn in a different direction: not inward like introverts, not outward like extroverts, butelsewhere. They turn toward something else entirely—independence, clarity, and observation.
The Latin alphabet or writing system.
(printing) The nonsense placeholder text (often based on real Latin) used ingreeking.
1833, Philipp Buttmann, translated by Edward Robinson,A Greek grammar for the use of high schools and universities, page23:
This appears incontestably from the manner in which theLatins wrote Greek words and names[…]
(historical) A member of anItalictribe that included the early inhabitants of the city of Rome, and from about 1000 BC inhabited the region known as Old Latium.
1922, William Edmund Aughinbaugh,Advertising for trade in Latin-America, page150:
In the use of patent medicine the averageLatin resembles the American of fifty years ago, who generally had a bottle of some concoction on which he depended whenever he felt out of sorts.
1853, William Palmer,Dissertations on Subjects Relating to the "Orthodox" or "Eastern-Catholic" Communion, page118:
The modernLatins have been in the habit of blaming the Greek and other Eastern Liturgies for not consecrating by the recital of OUR SAVIOUR'S words of Institution[…]
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According to the 2010 United States Census,Latin is the 35246th most common surname in the United States, belonging to 639 individuals.Latin is most common among Black/African American (44.44%), White (37.09%) and Hispanic/Latino (15.34%) individuals.
