Latin abbreviations we still use in English

The Roman Empire was one of the most fascinating civilisations in history. With an area of +4 million km², it covered most of Europe (in addition to parts of Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East). The official language of the Empire was Latin, which was considered the language of the educated elite. Despite the fact that Latin is classified as an extinct or dead language today, it still lives through the Romance language such as Italian, Spanish and French. And even though English is not a Romance language, Latin still makes up to 30% of its vocabulary.

Since Latin was the language for science and education (while English was an everyday language), most of the English words we use in Academia today have been derived/borrowed from Latin. Because it would be extremely difficult to go through all Latin-derived words in English (approx 50500 words), I chose to list some of the most common abbreviations that we see and use on a daily basis and sometimes wonder their origin.

1. E.g. before examples

Have you ever wondered why the abbreviation for example is e.g. instead of something like e.x.? Yep, you guessed it! It comes from the Latin phrase "exempli gratia" meaning 'for the sake of example'


2. Is it 12 AM or PM?

Those two abbreviations have caused me a lot of trouble over the years 😩 The 'm' in both of them stands for "meridiem" which means before noon. The A in AM stands for "ante" which is a prefix meaning before. (see words antebellum and antedate). The P in PM, however, stands for "post" which is another prefix that means after and it is widely used in the English Language. Postpartum, exempli gratia😛, means after childbirth.

3. P.S. I love you

Completed a long letter (or sent a long text) and had a thought to add after? No problem! Just write P.S. under the text and add your thought. P.S. stands for "post scriptum". Post, like you already know, means after and scriptum means the writing, and together they mean 'that which comes after the writing'

P.S. 'P.S. I love you' is a movie worth watching

4. %Per cent%

Percentages are commonly used in both Academic and everyday contexts. Per cent (or percent) comes from the Latin phrase "per centum" which translates to 'for each hundred'. It is worth mentioning that the letter C in Latin is always pronounced as a /k/ sound (as in cat) so the word for hundred in Latin is pronounced KEN.TUM.


5. i.e.

This abbreviation is mostly used in Academic writing to explain your idea in another way or in other words. I.e. stands for "id est" which means 'that is'. Try not to confuse i.e. with e.g. The first is used for clarification while the latter is used for examples.

6. ...etc.

Can't think of more examples? Just add etc. and let us think there is more. Etc. stands for "et cētera" which means 'and the others'. ET.KAETE.RAH in Latin and ET.SETE.RAH in English is only used for inanimate objects and never for people. For people we used 'et al' instead.