The Six Latin Cases: What Each One Does

Latin doesn't rely on word order to show who did what. It uses cases: different endings on nouns that show their role. Six cases cover almost everything.

The cases and their jobs

Case	Main job	Question it answers	Example (puella, girl)
Nominative	subject	who / what does it?	puella — the girl (subject)
Genitive	possession	whose? of what?	puellae — of the girl
Dative	indirect object	to whom? for whom?	puellae — to/for the girl
Accusative	direct object	whom / what?	puellam — the girl (object)
Ablative	means, place, source	by / with / from what?	puellā — by/with/from the girl
Vocative	addressing someone	(calling out)	puella — O girl!

An example sentence

Puella rosam puerō dat. — The girl gives a rose to the boy.

• puella (nominative) = subject: the girl
• rosam (accusative) = direct object: the rose
• puerō (dative) = indirect object: to the boy
• dat = gives

Because each word has its case ending, the same sentence could be arranged as Puerō rosam puella dat and still mean the same thing.

Singular and plural

Each case has singular and plural forms. For puella:

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	puella	puellae
Genitive	puellae	puellārum
Dative	puellae	puellīs
Accusative	puellam	puellās
Ablative	puellā	puellīs
Vocative	puella	puellae

Case ending overlap

Notice that the same form can serve several cases, such as puellae (genitive singular, dative singular, nominative plural). Context, other words and the verb decide which meaning applies.

The locative

A few place names also have a locative form meaning "at" or "in": Rōmae means "at Rome". It is rare.

Why it matters when using a dictionary

A dictionary gives you the nominative and the genitive of each noun (puella, puellae). The genitive tells you which declension the noun follows, so you can build every other case.

Tips

1. Learn the six cases in order.
2. Learn one noun in full first (puella).
3. Use the dictionary to check genitives.

Look up any word with English Latin Dictionary →