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There are two important rules to remember here:

• (1) Third-declension adjectives are i-stem. That means their ablative singulars will end –i, their genitive plurals will end -ium, and neuter nominative and accusative plurals will end -ia.
• (2) Third-declension adjectives can be one-, two-, or three-termination.

Just like some Latin nouns, some Latin adjectives are third-declension. That is, they have third-declension endings: , -is, -i, -em, -e, and so on. But unlike third-declension nouns, third-declension adjectives are all i-stem. They have a genitive plural ending -ium, a neuter nominative and accusative plural ending -ia, and an ablative singular ending in all genders, -i*.

Here’s an example of a third-declension adjective: brevis, breve, meaning “short.”

M/F I-Stem Neuter I-Stem

brevisbrevesbrevebrevia

brevisbrevium →brevis brevium

brevibrevibusbrevi brevibus

brevem breves/-isbrevebrevia

brevebrevibusbrevibrevibus

• Some third declension adjectives have two nominative singular forms, for instance, fortis, forte. Fortis is the masculine and feminine form; forte is the neuter. This is called a two-termination adjective.
• Other third-declension adjectives, especially those which have -r at the end of their base, have three nominative singular forms, such as acer, acris, acre. These are called three-termination adjectives.

For any adjectives which are two- or three-termination, all you do is drop the –is from the nominative singular feminine form and you have the base.

1. Take, for example, the two-termination adjective fortis, forte. Fortis is the nominative singular feminine form; drop the –is and you can see that the base is fort-.
2. For a three-termination adjective, do the same. So, for acer, acris, acre: the nominative singular feminine form is acris; drop the –is, and you can see that the base is acr-.
3. For one-termination adjectives, as we just noted, the genitive singular is required. So, for instance, the base of potens is potent-, which you get when you drop the –is ending from the genitive singular form.

Let’s do an exercise where you get to practice matching third-declension adjectives with first/second-declension nouns, or nouns of any declension as a matter of fact.

• First, we’ll determine the declension of the noun;
• Secondly, its number, gender, and case;
• Thirdly, what is the correct third-declension ending for that same number, gender, and case, then add that ending on to the base dulc- to create the proper form of dulcis that would agree with that particular noun.

Let’s start simple: puella.

• What declension is it? First, of course!
• And what is its case, number and gender? Nominative singular feminine.
• So now let’s look on the chart. What’s the nominative singular feminine ending in third declension? It’s -is. So the proper form of dulcis that agrees with puella is dulcis. Dulcis puella, or puella dulcis ─ in either case, “sweet girl.”

Next word: corpus.

• What declension and gender is it? Be careful! Not all -us forms are second declension masculine nominative singular. In case you missed it, that was a hint. It’s third declension neuter.
• So what does that make its case and number? It’s nominative singular, and because it’s neuter, it’s also accusative singular.
• So what is the nominative or accusative singular ending in third-declension? Look on the chart. Hello, it’s right there! Yes! It’s -e. So what would be the proper form of dulcis? That’s right, dulce. Corpus dulce, “sweet body.”