Latin verbs

Latin verbs have four main patterns of conjugation. As in a number of other languages, most Latin verbs have an active voice and a passive voice. There also exist deponent and semi-deponent Latin verbs (verbs with a passive form but active meaning), as well as defective verbs (verbs with a perfect form but present meaning). Sometimes the verbs of the third conjugation with a present stem on -ǐ (short i) are regarded as a separate pattern of conjugation, and are called the fifth conjugation, or third-io conjugation.

Conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb from basic forms, or principal parts. It may be affected by person, number, gender, tense, mood, voice or other language-specific factors.

In a dictionary, Latin verbs are listed with four "principal parts" (or fewer for deponent and defective verbs) which allow the reader to deduce the other conjugated forms of the verbs. These are:

For simple verb paradigms, see the appendix pages for , , , and .

The Latin verbs have the following properties:

There are four conjugations in Latin which define patterns of verb inflection. However the grouping in conjugations is based solely on the behaviour of the verb in the present system, and the stems for other forms cannot be inferred from the present stem, so several forms of the verb are necessary to be able to produce the full range of Latin verbal forms. Most Latin verbs belong to one of the four verb conjugations, though some, like esse (to be), do not.

The first conjugation is characterized by the vowel ā and can be recognized by the -āre ending of the present active infinitive form. The principal parts usually adhere to one of the following patterns:

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