Ablative

The Latin ablative case originally marked motion away from something, but later it became a very general adverbial case modifying or limiting nouns by ideas of place, time, manner, cause, instrument, accompaniment etc. Ablative usually, but not always, stands with prepositions (ab, ex, de, cum, in, sub).

Here are the basic and very general rules for making a singular ablative:

• If a word ends in "-us" then the ablative ends in "-o". "Tullius" becomes "Tullio".
• If a word ends in "-a", then the ablative ends in long "-á". "Livia" becomes "Liviá".
• If a word ends in "-o", then the ablative ends in "-one". "Cicero" becomes "Cicerone".
• Many other nouns change their ending to "-e" and some change to "-u", but their rules are more difficult and are not detailed here. Here are some just for example:

"Audens" in ablative becomes "Audente",

"Laenas" in ablative is "Laenate",

"homo" in ablative is "homine",

"consul" in ablative is "consule",

"Senatus" in dative is "Senatu",

"exercitus" in dative is "exercitui" and so on.

Usage in practice

An average Nova Roman citizen uses the ablative case in the consular dating. Learn more about Roman dates.