Latin Phrases and Sayings
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50 free Latin Phrases and Sayings trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Latin stopped being anyone's mother tongue many centuries ago, yet its phrases never left. They sit on banknotes and coats of arms, in legal documents and lecture halls, on tombstones, in film titles and in the small print of everyday English. Most of us use a handful every week without stopping to ask what the words actually say. This quiz works in both directions. Some questions give you the Latin and ask for the English meaning, while a second kind describes a saying and asks you to pick the right Latin. Along the way you will meet the emperors, poets and thinkers behind the best-known lines, and the countries, cities, armed services and companies that adopted them as mottoes. You do not need to have studied Latin. The questions suit word lovers, pub quiz teams, students, and teachers looking for a classroom warm-up. Every answer comes with a short explanation of where the phrase came from. Play online or print the questions.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Japanese sportswear brand is named from the initials of a Latin phrase meaning 'a sound mind in a sound body'?
Asics
Asics stands for 'anima sana in corpore sano'. The company grew out of a sports-shoe business that Kihachiro Onitsuka set up in Kobe in 1949, and it took its Latin name in a 1977 merger.
Q 02Which tyre company's mascot is called Bibendum, after the Latin toast 'Nunc est bibendum' on an 1898 poster?
Michelin
Michelin's stacked-tyre man was drawn by the cartoonist O'Galop proposing a toast that means 'now is the time to drink'. The joke was that the tyre drinks up obstacles.
Q 03The nation of Panem in The Hunger Games is named after a Latin phrase by the satirist Juvenal meaning what?
Bread and circuses
Bread and circuses, 'panem et circenses', was Juvenal's jibe at a public kept quiet with food and entertainment. Suzanne Collins has said her dystopia's name comes straight from it.
Q 04Which action franchise subtitled its third film 'Parabellum', after the Latin adage 'Si vis pacem, para bellum'?
John Wick
John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum borrows an adage that means 'if you want peace, prepare for war'. The same words gave the German Parabellum pistol cartridges their name.
Q 05Which US state's one-word Latin motto, 'Excelsior', did Marvel's Stan Lee adopt as his trademark sign-off?
New York
New York carries 'Excelsior' on a banner under its coat of arms, where it is usually translated 'ever upward'. Stan Lee ended his Marvel columns with the same word.
Q 06Which Hollywood studio's logo wraps the Latin motto 'Ars gratia artis', art for art's sake, around its mascot?
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's motto circles the roaring head of Leo the Lion, yet it is shaky Latin. 'Gratia' should follow its noun, so a Roman would have written 'ars artis gratia'.
Q 07A floor mosaic reading 'Cave canem', beware of the dog, guards the House of the Tragic Poet in which Roman town?
Pompeii
Pompeii's mosaic dog has been warning visitors since the 1st century AD. The same phrase appears in Petronius's Satyricon, painted in large letters on a wall at Trimalchio's dinner.
Q 08Julius Caesar is said to have declared 'Alea iacta est', the die is cast, as his army crossed which river?
Rubicon
The Rubicon marked the edge of Caesar's province and of his legal right to command troops. Plutarch says he spoke the line in Greek, probably quoting a play by Menander.
Q 09Which Ivy League university's shield spreads its one-word Latin motto, 'Veritas', across three open books?
Harvard
Harvard's 'Veritas' simply means truth. The outer band of the university seal carries a second Latin motto, 'Christo et Ecclesiae', for Christ and the Church.
Q 10The gravestone initials R.I.P., now read as English, first stood for which Latin phrase from Christian burial prayers?
Requiescat in pace
Requiescat in pace means 'may he or she rest in peace', so the English wording happens to fit the same three letters. For more than one person the Latin becomes 'requiescant in pace'.
Q 11The citation shorthand 'et al.', written after the first of a paper's several authors, abbreviates Latin meaning what?
And others
And others is the sense of 'et alii', which is why the shorthand is preferred to 'etc.' when the names left out belong to people. It can also stand for 'et alibi', and other places.
Q 12Q.E.D., which mathematicians write to end a proof, abbreviates a Latin translation of Euclid's Greek meaning what?
Which was to be demonstrated
Which was to be demonstrated, 'quod erat demonstrandum', signals that a proof has reached the statement it set out to prove. Euclid and Archimedes closed proofs with the Greek original.
Q 13The letters N.B., written in a text to flag an important point, abbreviate Latin words meaning what?
Q 21'Deus ex machina', a contrived plot rescue, recalls actors lowered by crane in Greek tragedy; what does it mean?
God from the machine
God from the machine is a Latin copy of a Greek stage term. More than half of Euripides's surviving tragedies end with a deity arriving to sort out the plot.
Q 22'Tabula rasa', a phrase tied to John Locke's view of the newborn mind, is usually translated into English as what?
Blank slate
Blank slate stands for the idea that people are born without built-in mental content. The image is a Roman wax tablet, wiped for reuse by heating the wax and smoothing it flat.
Q 23What does 'memento mori' mean, the Latin name art historians give to skulls and hourglasses placed in paintings?
Note well
Note well is the literal meaning of 'nota bene', an order given to one reader. Addressed to several readers at once, the Latin becomes 'notate bene'.
Q 14The verb 'ad-lib', used when a performer improvises, shortens the Latin phrase 'ad libitum', which means what?
At one's pleasure
At one's pleasure is how 'ad libitum' translates. On sheet music it hands a passage to the performer's discretion, and biologists use it to describe feeding without restriction.
Q 15What does 'status quo' mean, the Latin phrase that diplomats lengthen to 'status quo ante bellum' in peace treaties?
Existing state of affairs
Existing state of affairs is what 'status quo' means. The longer form puts everything back as it stood before the fighting, as the Treaty of Ghent did after the War of 1812.
Q 16Police shorten which Latin phrase to 'M.O.' when they describe the habitual methods that a criminal uses?
Modus operandi
Modus operandi translates roughly as 'manner of operating'. Criminal profilers study it for clues to an offender's psychology.
Q 17Lawyers who take a case without charging a fee work 'pro bono', short for a Latin phrase meaning what?
For the public good
For the public good translates the full phrase, 'pro bono publico'. American Bar Association ethics rules recommend that lawyers give at least 50 hours a year to such work.
Q 18Under the Vienna Convention, a host country can expel a foreign diplomat by declaring them which Latin term?
Persona non grata
Persona non grata brands the envoy as unwelcome. Article 9 of the convention lets a state make the declaration at any time and without having to explain its decision.
Q 19'Summa cum laude', the tier of Latin honours above 'magna cum laude', says a degree was earned in which way?
With highest praise
With highest praise is the top of a three-step ladder that climbs from 'cum laude' through 'magna cum laude'. Most American colleges award it with bachelor's degrees but not with a master's or a Ph.D.
Q 20'Mea culpa', now shorthand for a public apology, comes from the Confiteor, a prayer said at Mass; what does it mean?
Through my fault
Through my fault is how the Confiteor's Latin is put into English, and the prayer says it three times. Worshippers may beat their breast as they speak the words.
Remember you must die
Remember you must die is the gist of 'memento mori'. The philosopher Epictetus compared it to the attendants who stood behind generals at their triumphs to remind them they were mortal.
Q 24'Tempus fugit', a motto carved on sundials and on gravestones beside a winged hourglass, is usually translated how?
Time flies
Time flies is a cheerful trim of a gloomier line. In Virgil's Georgics the words are 'fugit irreparabile tempus': time escapes and can never be recovered.
Q 25Which Latin aphorism from the Roman poet Horace's Odes, usually translated 'seize the day', says to enjoy the moment?
Carpe diem
Carpe diem comes from an ode telling a woman called Leuconoe not to fret about the future. The verb is a gardener's one, closer to 'pluck the day', as you would ripe fruit.
Q 26Chaucer's Prioress wears a brooch inscribed 'Amor vincit omnia', a line adapted from Virgil's Eclogues, meaning what?
Love conquers all
Love conquers all sits oddly on a nun, and Chaucer lists the brooch among her worldly comforts, beside her lap dogs. Virgil's line, in his tenth Eclogue, goes on to urge surrender to love.
Q 27Which English proverb translates 'Audentis Fortuna iuvat', the line Virgil gives the warrior Turnus in the Aeneid?
Fortune favours the bold
Fortune favours the bold has a famous casualty. Pliny the Elder, his nephew wrote, quoted a version of it as he turned his fleet towards erupting Vesuvius, and he died on the expedition.
Q 28In the Aeneid, the priest Laocoön says 'Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes', I fear Greeks bearing gifts, of which object?
The Trojan Horse
The Trojan Horse got a spear in its flank from Laocoön as he gave the warning. Nobody listened, and two sea serpents then crushed him and both of his sons.
Q 29Which First World War poet used the Latin line 'Dulce et decorum est' as the title of a gas-attack poem?
Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Owen borrowed a Roman verse that calls it sweet and proper to die for one's country. He sent an early draft to his mother in 1917, and the poem was published only after his death.
Q 30Which US state put 'Ad astra per aspera', to the stars through difficulties, on the Great Seal it adopted in 1861?
Kansas
Kansas owes its seal to John James Ingalls, a politician from Atchison who submitted the design. The seal crowds in a rising sun, a steamboat, a ploughman and a wagon train to tell the state's history.