#Vox meaning latin pro

It literally means 'senseless thunderbolt.' 4. BRUTUM FULMENĪpparently coined by the Roman scholar Pliny the Elder, a brutum fulmen is a harmless or empty threat. This is just one of a number of phrases that show how the Romans associated beards with intelligence, alongside barba non facit philosophum, 'a beard does not make a philosopher,' and barba crescit caput nescit, meaning 'the beard grows, but the head doesn’t grow wiser.' 3. BARBA TENUS SAPIENTESĪ man described as barba tenus sapientes is literally said to be 'wise as far as his beard'-or, in other words, he might look intelligent but he’s actually far from it. Like 'holding a tiger by the tail,' it is used to describe an unsustainable situation, and in particular one in which both doing nothing and doing something to resolve it are equally risky. 161 BCE), a work by the Roman playwright Terence-was a popular proverb in Ancient Rome. It might seem odd to say that you’re 'holding a wolf by the ears,' but auribus teneo lupum-a line taken from Phormio (c. So next time you spot a misbehaving child, or you want to seize the night rather than the day, you’ll have the perfect phrase at hand.

#Vox meaning latin pro

Even some entire Latin phrases have become so naturalized in English that we use them, in full, without a second thought-like bona fide (literally 'in good faith'), alter ego ('other self'), persona non grata ('unwelcome person'), vice versa ('position turned'), carpe diem ('seize the day'), cum laude ('with praise'), alma mater ('nourishing mother'), and quid pro quo ('something for something,' 'this for that').īesides fairly commonplace examples like these, however, English has adopted a number of much less familiar Latin phrases and expressions that go criminally underused-20 examples of which are listed here.

Hundreds of words-like memo, alibi, agenda, census, veto, alias, via, alumni, affidavit and versus-are all used in everyday English, as are abbreviations like i.e. You’d probably be surprised by how much Latin you actually already know.