Fifth Declension

The Fabulous Five...

We meet at last the fifth of the fabulous five:  the Fifth Declension. It contains the fewest words of the five declensions, but some of them are extremely important and frequent.  Most are feminine in gender.  This declension has only one set of endings, i.e. it has common gender for masculine and feminine nouns, and there are no neuters.  Lastly, many fifth-declension words are not found in the plural. 

The characteristic nominative singular ending is ēs; the genitive will be -ēī or –eī.

Declensions with few different forms can present a challenge. 

Ablative of Place Where

Latin shows “place where” by using a suitable preposition followed by an ablative object.  The commonest prepositions for this are in and sub.  This use of the ablative is comparable to the “ablative of accompaniment” (which is really just cum + ablative). There are also some “frozen expressions” in the ablative regarding place, but in general the ablative of place where is quite simple.  Your book provides a good review of the ablative uses you’ve had so far.  Don’t worry—we won’t run out of uses for this fascinating case.

Now click on the button below to watch a presentation on ablative of place.