• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Learn Latin from scratch online

Learn Latin from Scratch

Learn Latin from Scratch following the traditional grammar-translation method: all the grammar and exercises you need, step by step!

  • 🏛️ Learn Latin online
  • 🎭 About
  • 🔐 Log in
  • ✨ Get the course ✨
Latin from scratch course › #18: Deponent verbs › #18.35: Deponent morphology

Latin from scratch #18.35: Morphology of deponent verbs

In the thirty-fifth class of the Latin from Scratch course, we’ll study the morphology of the deponent verbs, which are a special kind of verbs with passive morphology but active meaning, and two other smaller types.

Contents

  • Active deponent verbs
  • Passive deponent verbs
  • Semideponent verbs

I explain everything in the following video (⏳ 06m 33s ⌛):

BUY THE COURSE for full access, including:

📺 videos with analysis-translation 🔍 support 👨‍🏫 no ads anywhere 🛑

Active deponent verbs

Do you love classics? Are you interested in Latin? Would you like to receive cool emails about that stuff? I’m quite sure you would: join the newsletter! 📧

Active deponent verbs are conjugated in the passive voice, but their meaning is active, so in English they’re translated as active verbs. These are the most frequent deponent verbs, so we usually just refer to them as deponent verbs.

They’re conjugated just like any other passive verb. They’re easy to spot because the first form of the statement ends in ‑r.

Some frequent active deponent verbs, with their meaning, are:

  • 1st conjugation: miror, mirari, miratus sum “wonder”, “admire”
  • 2nd conjugation: polliceor, polliceri, pollicitus sum “promise”
  • 3rd conjugation: utor, uti, usus sum “use” (+ ablative)
  • mixed conjugation: patior, pati, passus sum “suffer”, “bear”, “endure”
  • 4th conjugation: potior, potiris, potiri, potitus sum “obtain”, “take possession of” (+ ablative)

Notice that some verbs have their object in the ablative case, while others can have it in the accusative case (so the verb is transitive, even if it’s passive morphologically!).

Passive deponent verbs

Passive deponent verbs are conjugated in the active voice, but have passive meaning. They are few and infrequent.

  • vapulo “be flogged” (1st conjugation)
  • exsulo “be banished” (1st conjugation)
  • veneo “be sold” (4th conjugation)

Semideponent verbs

Semideponent verbs are those which are deponent only in the tenses corresponding to the perfect stem: these tenses have passive morphology, while the rest of the tenses have active morphology. In all the cases, their meaning is active.

The are some quite frequent semideponent verbs:

  • fido, fidere, fisus sum “trust”
  • confido, confidere, confisus sum “trust”
  • diffido, diffidere, diffisus sum “distrust”
  • audeo, audere, ausus sum “dare”, “venture”
  • gaudeo, gaudere, gavisus sum “rejoice”, “enjoy”
  • soleo, solere, solitus sum “use (to do something)”, “be wont”, “be accustomed”

With this class we have almost finished all of the verbal morphosyntax, but we still have to study two fundamental aspects: participles and infinitives.

Join the Latin from scratch course!

Join the Latin from scratch course!

Theory without practice is absolutely useless!

With a one-time payment you'll have the full course forever, with all the theory explained in video (no dirty YouTube ads) and, most importantly, dozens of hours of practice analyzed and explained step by step by me on the screen. Join now!

Next: Morphology of deponent verbs →

Paco Álvarez

About Paco Álvarez

I’m Paco Álvarez, a Spanish classical philologist. For years I’ve been teaching Latin and Greek online to Spanish students. When I saw there was nothing like my AcademiaLatin.com for English-speaking Latin lovers, I decided to create it myself, and that’s how LatinFromScratch.com was born.

New here? Start right now!

👉 And don’t forget to subscribe to the free newsletter!

Reader Interactions

Questions about this content?

🔏

Only premium students can ask questions.

Buy the course for full access or log in (if you've already bought).

Primary Sidebar

Paco Álvarez

Salve! This is Paco, your Latin teacher!

Course content

  1. Quick start
  2. Introduction
  3. Cases and their functions
  4. The five declensions
  5. First declension
  6. Verbal conjugation
  7. Present tense
  8. Second declension
  9. 2-1-2 adjectives
  10. Imperfect past tense
  11. Future tense
  12. Third declension nouns
  13. Third declension adjectives
  14. Perfect past tense
  15. Adverbials of place
  16. Fourth declension
  17. Fifth declension
  18. Pluperfect tense
  19. Possessives
  20. Personal pronouns
  21. Apposition
  22. Predicative complement
  23. Present subjunctive
  24. Imperfect subjunctive
  25. Perfect subjunctive
  26. Perfect future indicative
  27. Pluperfect subjunctive
  28. Syntax of cum
  29. Syntax of ut & ne
  30. Comparison of adjectives
  31. Superlative adjectives
  32. Adverbs from adjectives
  33. Demonstratives
  34. Relative clauses
  35. Passive voice
  36. Deponent verbs
  37. Relative time
  38. Participles: morphology
  39. Participles: syntax
  40. Infinitives
  41. Compounds of sum
  42. Irregular verbs
  43. Imperative

Start at the beginning

Did you miss the absolute basics of Latin grammar? Start from scratch, at the very beginning of the Latin course.

Legal note | Privacy policy | Terms and conditions | Cookies

Latin from Scratch is a project by Paco Álvarez. Follow me on YouTube 📺. Definitely subscribe to my newsletter 📧.