Hi,
Does anyone have recommendations of good Latin vocabulary books (Latin-English)?
Also, I have a specific word to ask: does the form “commentaria” exist? As far as I know, there is only “commentarius” and its inflections, and none of them is “commentaria”.
DOCTOR EXIMIVS ATQVE PIVS
Lewis and Short and The Oxford Latin Dictionary are considered the best.
The neuter commentarium, ii n. exists as well, it’s an alternative form of commentarius, ii m. The plural of commentarium is commentaria, so the form does indeed exist.
From one of those “vocabulary books” just mentioned:
commentārius ~(i)ī m. Also ~ium ~(i)ī neut., conm-. [commentum + -ārius] GENDER: where distinguishable more commonly m.; neut. VAR. L. 6.90, CIC. Brut. 164, VITR. 9.pr.14, LIV. 42.6.3, PLIN. Nat. 34.108, etc.
Glare, P. G. W. (Ed.). (2012). Oxford Latin Dictionary (Second Edition, Vol. I & II). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
We normally call “vocabulary books” Lexicons, when citations are included to support the glosses, and dictionaries where such citations are not included.
You can find apps for Lewis and Short for both Android and iPhone.
I find Traupman’s Latin-English student dictionary helpful, especially while away from my desk. It’s small, low-cost (Bantam), and it has handy grammar tables. I have worn out several of these.
Whitaker’s Words is also a useful app available for Android. I don’t know if it is available for iphone. Unlike the Lewis and Short app, which requires the dictionary entry of a word (i.e. nominative singular, 1st person present active indicative, etc.), with Whitaker’s Words you can enter any form of the word and get a meaning and possible inflections.
I have the iPhone Whitaker’s words. It requires internet to work.
I want to clarify that I used the term “vocabulary book” instead of “dictionary” or “lexicon” intentionally. I am more looking for a book with, for example, 1500 or 2000 or 3000 common and frequently used words, so that it can help me reading much faster, which is similar to what many people do when preparing SAT or GRE (I’m not going to any Latin exams). Do you have any suggestions?
I wondered if that is what you had in mind.
This might be what you are looking for:
Essential Latin Vocabulary: The 1,425 Most Common Words Occurring in the Actual Writings of over 200 Latin Authors Mark A. E. Williams
https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Latin-Vocabulary-Occurring-Writings/dp/0615702503
Yes, this is exactly the kind of book I’m looking for. Thank you!
DOCTOR EXIMIVS ATQVE PIVS