Genitive Case - Latin

Latin

The genitive is one of the cases of nouns and pronouns in Latin. Latin genitives still have certain modern scientific uses:

  • Scientific names of living things sometimes contain genitives, as in the plant name Buddleja davidii, meaning "David's buddleia". Here Davidii is the genitive of Davidius, a Latinized version of the English name. It is not capitalized because it is the second part of a scientific name.
  • Names of astronomical constellations are Latin, and the genitives of their names are used in naming objects in those constellations, as in the Bayer designation of stars. For example, the brightest star in the constellation Virgo is called Alpha Virginis, which is to say "Alpha of Virgo", as virginis is the genitive of virgō.

Read more about this topic:  Genitive Case

Famous quotes containing the word latin:

    “She’s a Latin from Manhattan.”
    —Al Dubin (1891–1945)

    “Is there no Latin word for Tea? Upon my soul, if I had known that I would have let the vulgar stuff alone.”
    —Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953)

    “There is no doubt that Greek and Latin are great and handsome ornaments, but we buy them too dear.”
    —Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)