LATIN DICTIONARYLexicon Latīnum
Allen & Greenough · Part First — Words and Forms › Signification of the Forms of the Verb

§159. Gerund and Supine

The Gerund and Supine are used as follows:—

a. The Gerund is a verbal noun, corresponding in meaning to the English verbal noun in -ing (§ 502): as, loquendī causā, for the sake of speaking.

b. The Supine is in form a noun of the fourth declension (§ 94. b), found only in the accusative ending in -tum, -sum, and the dative or ablative ending in -tū, -sū.

The Supine in -um is used after verbs and the Supine in -ū after adjectives (§§ 509, 510):—

  • vēnit spectātum, he came to see; mīrābile dictū, wonderful to tell.

J. H. Allen and J. B. Greenough, New Latin Grammar (Boston: Ginn, 1903). Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.