unlatinate

English

Alternative forms

  • un-Latinate
  • unLatinate

Etymology

From un- +‎ Latinate.

Adjective

unlatinate (comparative more unlatinate, superlative most unlatinate)

  1. Which does not (or seems not to) follow the Latin language's grammatical rules correctly.
    • 2001, Michael W. Herren, “The "Greek Element" in the "Cosmographia" of Aethicus Ister”, in The Journal of Medieval Latin, volume 11, page 197:
      Ingemuitque aedificavitque aras in monte Chelion... (Prinz, p.139)

      The very unlatinate use of double -que could well reflect an attempt to imitate the Greek connective particles τε. . . τε.
    • 2017, Victoria Moul, A Guide to Neo-Latin Literature:
      In a world where Latin was not universally used, despite its dominance in certain contexts, feminized domesticity, potentially pemicious in its own right, becomes even more menacing when understood as vernacular, un-Latinate, and un-improving, and the educational institution, personified by the teacher, becomes all-important for the formation of character and mind.
  2. (derogatory) Ignorant of the Latin language.
    Synonyms: unlatined, unlatin
    • 2005, Lynne Long, chapter 2, in Translation and Religion:
      And had we but known it, the 1960s were just round the corner with their real reach-out-by-translation committees to intelligibly plain speech in half as many syllables, whether in the New English Bible's: 'The earlier rules are cancelled as impotent and useless' or the Good News Bible's firmly unlatinate: 'The old rule then is set aside, because it was weak and useless.'
    • 2015, Rebecca Stephenson, The Politics of Language, page 67:
      The next chapter will investigate how this Benedictine identity is constructed through the creation of a caricatured other: the ignorant, unsophisticated, and unLatinate secular cleric.