Glossary Word list Grammar table

Lesson 2: Introduction to nouns; first declension nouns; cases of nouns

What is a noun?

A noun is a person, place or thing.
For example: the queen, a parish, the charter.

Nouns are divided into groups called declensions. Nouns that end in ‘a’ belong to the first declension. They are mostly feminine.

In Latin, there are no words for ‘a’ or ‘the’.

When you are reading a document, you can decide which meaning is appropriate.

These are examples of Latin nouns from the first declension.

domina	lady
ecclesia	church
parochia	parish
terra	land
vidua	widow

Have you noticed that they all end in ‘a’?

People’s names are also nouns. In Latin, women’s names often end in ‘a’.

All Latin nouns have a gender – they are either masculine, feminine or neuter. Even charters and parishes have a gender! In English we give some nouns a gender, for example we describe ships as ‘she’.

	Checklist: Are you confident with:
	The Latin for ‘a land’, ‘the land’ and ‘land’?

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