meus
[ˈme.ʊs]masculine
My in Latin is meus.
meus means my or mine and goes with the thing that is owned.
Meaning: belonging to me (det)
How does it change in a sentence?
meus agrees in gender and number with the noun it describes, not with the person who owns it. The masculine form is meus, the feminine is mea and the neuter is meum.
What mistakes should you avoid?
Do not match the word to the owner. A woman talking about a masculine noun still uses meus, because the word follows the noun.
Did you know?
- In Roman legal and formal contexts, using meus to describe a person often indicated a relationship of ownership or patronage rather than just a familial bond.
- Latin often omits meus entirely when the ownership is obvious, such as when talking about one's own body parts, whereas English almost always requires 'my'.
- The word meus evolved from the Proto-Italic meos and the even older Proto-Indo-European *éǵh₂der.
Examples in context
- Mitte hunc meā grātiā.Let this man alone for my sake.meā is the feminine form used here with grātiā, for my sake.
- Tu nepos meus es.You are my grandson.nepos meus uses the masculine form because grandson is masculine.Tatoeba #11130542 by carlosalberto, translation #11130519 by carlosalberto
- Is liber meus est.This is my book.liber meus means my book, with meus after the noun.Tatoeba #1003967 by alexmarcelo, translation #463306 by lukaszpp
- 472 more sentences on Tatoeba
Example conversation
Gaius and Julia are talking in a garden about a dog.
- GaiusHic canis meus est.This dog is mine.
- JuliaEstne canis tuus laetus?Is your dog happy?
- GaiusIta, canis meus laetus est.Yes, my dog is happy.
- JuliaBene est.That is good.
Sources
- Wiktionary, “my” translations and entries meus, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
- Word origins: Wiktionary entries meus, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Example sentences: Wiktionary CC BY-SA 4.0, Tatoeba CC BY 2.0 FR.
