Medieval Latin Online Logo

HOME | Course Info | Blackboard | QUIA
Week 1 Intro | Weekly Activities | Calendar | Grading
Grammar Guide | Perseus Dictionary | Perseus Tool


image of Reynard the Fox
image of medieval king (11th century)
image of Grammatica (by Abbess Herrad)

Perseus Tools

One of the most important tools available to you as a student of Latin is the Perseus Project website at Tufts University. In addition to providing a range of Latin texts online, the Perseus Project also has an online Latin dictionary and an online Latin morphology tool. You will find links to these tools on most of the webpages for this course (take a look at the links at the top of this page!).

Believe me: you are going to want to get to know the Perseus website!

So, before beginning the Latin readings for this course, you need to make sure that you understand how to use these tools.

  • Go to the Latin Dictionary at Perseus. At the top of each dictionary entry there is a "search" bar that allows you to move through the dictionary based on the beginning letters of the Latin word. You can also use the Latin dictionary search page in order to look for Latin words that contain a specific string of letters that you enter here. Plus you can also search the dictionary in reverse. Finally, you can also search the dictionary by the English word entries: this is both a Latin-English dictionary and an English-Latin dictionary.
  • Go to the Morphology Tool at Perseus. You can enter any Latin word, and Perseus will do its best to identify the form of that word. can help you: when you enter a word into the morphology tool, Perseus will do its best to identify the form of the word and provide a link to the dictionary. The Morphology Tool is incredibly useful when you do know how to look the word up in the dictionary or when you are not sure about the ending of the word.

Assignment. Here is an assignment to get you used to using the Latin Dictionary and the Morphology Tool. When you are done, send your answers via email to laura-gibbs@ou.edu:

  1. Dictionary. Find 5 words that begin with "multi" and provide a very brief definition of each one. For example: "multifructus: abounding in fruit"
  2. Dictionary. Find 5 words that end with the suffix "trix" and provide a very brief definition of each one. For example: "compotrix: a female drinking companion"
  3. Dictionary. Find 5 words that contain the string "form" and provide a very brief definition of each one. For example: "caniformis: dog-shaped"
  4. Dictionary. What is the meaning of this word: mustelatus
  5. Dictionary. What is the meaning of this word: parasceve
  6. Morphology Tool. What is the dictionary form and basic meaning of this word: pepercere
  7. Morphology Tool. What is the dictionary form and basic meaning of this word: vinciri
  8. Morphology Tool. What is the dictionary form and basic meaning of this word: cimicum

... and when you are done, it's time to go play some games at QUIA - quia.com.


Modern Languages 4970 / MRS 4903: Medieval Latin. Spring 2003 Online Course at the University of Oklahoma. Visit http://www.ou.edu/online/ for more info.
Laura Gibbs, University of Oklahoma - Information Technology © 2003.  laura-gibbs@ou.edu. Last updated: December 29, 2002 7:12 PM