Latin

1. not comparableOf or relating to Latin: the language spoken in ancient Rome and other cities of Latium.

   Africa was the natural leader because there the number of Christians who were of Roman origin and Latin speech was probably far greater than in so cosmopolitan a city as Rome.

   1948, L. E. Elliott-Binns, The Beginnings of Western Christendom, page 257

2. not comparableOf or relating to the script of the language spoken in ancient Rome and many modern alphabets.

   The Serbo-Croatian incunabula printed in Latin letters are indubitably the products of a very modest establishment.

   1968, Mladen Bošnjak, A Study of Slavic Incunabula, page 62

   Synonyms: Roman

3. not comparableOf or relating to ancient Rome or its Empire.

   The earliest Latin culture of Ireland was heavily indebted to that of Britain[…]

   2000, T. M. Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland, page 176

   Synonyms: Roman

4. not comparableOf or relating to Latium (modern Lazio), the region around Rome.

   From the Campagna and the Latin hills, the flame of rebellion spread to Antium and Terracina, and to the most remote allies of the Romans, the cities of the Campanian plains.

   1913, Oscar Browning, A General History of the World, page 151

   Synonyms: Latian

5. not comparableOf or relating to the customs and people descended from the ancient Romans and their Empire.

   Major for joy, Minor for sadness, is apparently a significance which the German nations read into these scales; while the Semitic, Latin, and Slavic nations do not share this conception.

   1929, Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, Jewish Music: Its Historical Development, page 399

   1 more example

   Therefore, although Portugal is a Latin culture, the significant African influence in Brazil creates a culture that cannot be defined simply as Latin; consequently, Brazilians prefer to define themselves as South American[…]

   2002, Dean Foster, The Global Etiquette Guide to Mexico and Latin America, page 11

   Synonyms: Romance

6. not comparableOf or from Latin America or of Latin American culture.

   As such, today's Latin music is a synthesis of European, African, and the few indigenous elements that remain.

   2008, Michael Miller, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Music History, page 254

   Synonyms: Latin American, Latino

7. not comparableChristianityRoman Catholic; of or pertaining to the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church.

   The Latin bishop now took the Greek bishop by the hand and conducted him to his throne[…]

   1901, John Hackett, A History of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus, page 117

   Synonyms: Catholic, Roman, Roman Catholic

plural Latins

1. uncountableThe language of the ancient Romans, other Latins and of the Roman Catholic church, especially Classical Latin.

   Like Copernicus and Galileo, Johannes Kepler was a renowned astronomer who wrote in Latin.

   2010, Elizabeth Heimbach, A Roman Map Workbook, page 134

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   Supper being over, the lawyer took his leave, and the doctor began to ſound the learned clerk reſpecting his proficiency in the dead languages. "As to dead languages," replied the ſchoolmafter, "I was once a vaſt pretty ſcholar indeed, but want of exercise has made me main ſlack—I can't get over my ground as I uſed to do. Then as to the t'other dead fellow, I could never greek it at all, that's flat. And, Lord bleſs you! my Latin is of no more uſe to me here than—than—" Here he ſtuck for want of a ſimile; when Mr. Le Dupe helped him out by ſaying, "that it is to a young man at college, where it is conſidered a pedantic inſult, and an unpardonable bore, to utter a Latin ſentence."

   1799, Edward Dubois, A Piece of Family Biography, volume II, page 20

   To Hall [Robert A. Hall, Jr.], the development would be something as follows: Latin > Proto-Romance (dated late Republic and Early Empire) > Proto-Continental Romance > Proto-Italo-Western Romance (to which Hall would limit the term "Vulgar Latin") > Proto-Western Romance > Proto-Gallo Romance, etc. Each of these main divisions splits off into further languages: Latin > Classical Latin; Proto-Romance > Proto-Southern Romance > Sardinian, Lucianian, Sicilian; Proto-Continental Romance > Proto-Eastern Romance > Proto-Balkan Romance, etc.

   1999, Karl Strecker, transl. by Robert B. Palmer, Introduction to Medieval Latin: English Translation and Revision, 2nd ed. (2nd reprint of the ed. Dublin/Zürich 1971 (Berlin 1957)), Weidmann: Zürich & Hildesheim, p. 29

   When the Christian Church rose in stature in the Dark Ages, its adoption of Latin as the official language assured its eternal life.

   2003, Natalie Harwood, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Latin, 2nd edition, page 13

   I call them otroverts—from otro, the Spanish word for “other,” and vertere, Latin for “to turn.” Otroverts are people who turn in a different direction: not inward like introverts, not outward like extroverts, but elsewhere. They turn toward something else entirely—independence, clarity, and observation.

   2025 June 19, Rami Kaminski, “How Outsiders Can Thrive in a World That Wants Them to Fit In”, in Next Big Idea Club

2. countableuncountableThe Latin alphabet or writing system.
3. countableuncountablemediaThe nonsense placeholder text (often based on real Latin) used in greeking.

plural Latins

1. historicalA person native to ancient Rome or its Empire.

   This appears incontestably from the manner in which the Latins wrote Greek words and names[…]

   1833, Philipp Buttmann, translated by Edward Robinson, A Greek grammar for the use of high schools and universities, page 23

   Synonyms: Roman

2. historicalA member of an Italic tribe that included the early inhabitants of the city of Rome, and from about 1000 BCE inhabited the region known as Old Latium.

   Synonyms: Latial, Latian

3. A person from one of the modern European countries (including Italy, Spain etc.) whose language is descended from Latin.

   ‘Ah, them mad Latins is always trying to kill each other off.’

   1961, Tom Mead, Killers of Eden, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 190

   2 more examples

   No; the test of the contrast between modern Latins and modern Teutons is exactly like the test of the contrast between modern Latins and ancient Latins.

   1933, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, 'All I Survey': a book of essays, page 148

   Latins are always conspicuously dangerous when they are serving an unpopular cause for money.

   1982, Lawrence Durrell, Constance (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 2004, page 760

4. A person from Latin America.

   A great country will be when men and women, Africans and Europeans and Latins and Asians are accepted as human, as valuable

   1986, Daniel Garrett, “Creating Ourselves: An Open Letter”, in Joseph Beam, editor, In The Life: A Black Gay Anthology, page 100

   1 more example

   In the use of patent medicine the average Latin resembles the American of fifty years ago, who generally had a bottle of some concoction on which he depended whenever he felt out of sorts.

   1922, William Edmund Aughinbaugh, Advertising for trade in Latin-America, page 150

   Synonyms: Latin American, Latino

5. ChristianityA person adhering to Roman Catholic practice.

   The modern Latins have been in the habit of blaming the Greek and other Eastern Liturgies for not consecrating by the recital of OUR SAVIOUR'S words of Institution[…]

   1853, William Palmer, Dissertations on Subjects Relating to the "Orthodox" or "Eastern-Catholic" Communion, page 118

   Synonyms: Catholic, Roman, Roman Catholic

plural Latins

1. A surname from Middle English.