In the nominative and accusative neuter, the formsdieses anddies are in general interchangeable, but there is a tendency to prefer one or the other in the following situations:
In adjectival usage,dieses is generally preferred todies. Sodieses Haus ("this house") is more common than the also correct and synonymousdies Haus.
In substantival usage,dieses is used to refer to a previously used neuter noun:
Unser Unternehmen sollte das Gebäude verkaufen. Wir könnendieses nicht mehr gebrauchen.
Our company should sell the building. We cannot make use of it anymore.
Dies is used to refer to a preceding context or phrase:
Unser Unternehmen sollte das Gebäude verkaufen.Dies würde uns viel Geld einbringen.
Our company should sell the building. This would earn us a lot of money.
Dies is also used to refer to something the speaker perceives with the senses (exophoric use,deixis):
Sieh dirdies mal an! – Have a look at this! (e.g. a newspaper article)
Dies sind meine Kinder. – These are my children. (regular use of the neuter singular with acopula verb)
The above habits are mainly true of formal speech and writing. Colloquially, the shorterdies is often preferred, but the pronounsdas andes are even more common.
Back-formed from the accusativediem (at a time when the vowel was still long), fromProto-Italic*djēm, the accusative of*djous, fromProto-Indo-European*dyḗws(“heaven, sky”).[1] The original nominative survives as*diūs in two fossilised phrases:mē diūs fidius(an interjection) andnū diūs tertius(“day before yesterday”, literally“now (is) the third day”). Thed indiēs is a puzzle with some suggesting dialect borrowing and others referring to an etymon*diyew- viaLindeman's Law. But note the possible Proto-Italic allophony between*-CjV- and*-CiV-, which may be the cause for this divergence (SeeWT:AITC).
Sexdiēbus colligite indiē autem septimō sabbatum est Dominō idcircō nōn inveniētur.
Sixdays ye shall gather it; but on the seventhday, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none.
1564, Elizabeth I of England,Queen Elizabeth's Latin Speech to the University, at the Conclusion of her Entertainment in St. Mary's Church 9:
Haec tamen vulgaris sententia me aliquantulum recreavit, quae etsi non auferre, tamen minuere possit dolorem meum, quae quidem sententia haec est, Romam unodie non fuisse conditam.
But this common saying has given me a certain amount of comfort – a saying which cannot take away, but can at least lessen, the grief that I feel; and the saying is, that Rome was not built in oneday.
Dates in the Roman calendar were reckoned according to thecalends (kalendae), thenones (nōnae), and theides (īdūs). The calends of every month was its first day; the nones and ides of most months were their 5th and 13th days; and the nones and ides of the four original 31-day months—Mārtius,Maius,Quīntīlis orIūlius, andOctōber—were two days later. January 1st was thuskalendaeIānuāriae orIānuāriī. The day preceding any of these three principal days was called its eve (prīdiē). January 12th was thusprīdiēīdūsIānuāriās orIānuāriī (pr.Id.Ian.). All other days of the month were expressed by counting inclusively forward to the next of these three principal days and, in early Latin, this was expressed in the ablative. January 11th was thusdiētertiōanteīdūsIānuāriās orIānuāriī (IIIId.Ian.). By the time of classical Latin, however, theante had moved to the beginning of the expression and it became an accusative absolute:antediemtertiumīdūsIānuāriās orIānuāriī (a. d.IIIId.Ian.).[2] In this form, the date functioned as a single indeclinable noun and could serve as the object of prepositions such asex andin.[3]
Unlike most fifth-declension nouns,diēs is not exclusively feminine. It was typically masculine, particularly in the plural. It appears as a feminine noun when being personified as a goddess, in some specific dates, in reference to the passing of time, and occasionally in other contexts.
“dies”, inCharlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879),A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
“dies”, inCharlton T. Lewis (1891),An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
"dies", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’sGlossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
