Perhaps the most important use of the ablative case is with prepositions. Prepositions and the  nouns or pronouns they go with show direction toward, time, the means by which something is done, where and when something is done, purpose, and various other kinds of directions.

When you memorize a preposition, you need to know what case it takes. Below are the major prepositions that take the ablative case and what they mean.
 

ab	away from, from, by,  by means of	ab Roma ab flamma ab Sulla	away from Rome, from Rome by means of flame by Sulla
cum	with	cum diligentia cum Caecia et Marcia	With diligence (ablative of manner) With Caecilia and Marcia  (ablative of accompaniment)
de	about, concerning, down from, from	de pugna de silvis	Concerning the war Down from the woods
ex	out of, from	ex insula	Out of the island
in	on, upon, in	in villa	In the farmhouse
prae	before, in front of	prae porta	In front of the gate
pro	in front of, before for the sake of, instead of	pro via pro patria pro ancillis	Before the street For the homeland instead of (in place of) maids
sine	without	sine pecunia	Without money
sub	under, beneath (no motion implied)	sub terra	Beneath the earth

 

Some of these prepositions seem to have very different meanings, depending on context. For example:

de with verbs of motion means "down from", as in Sulla de ripa ambulat. (= Sulla walks down from the bank..) But often de is used to describe the subject of a book, conversation, etc. as in: Lucretia fabulam de Roma narrat. = (Lucretia tells a story about Rome.)

cum can descibe the manner in which a deed is done. Thus: Maria cum diligentia laborat  (= Maria works with diligence.) But also cum shows with whom a deed is done, or with whom one is with. Thus: Arria cum feminiis ad Graeciam navigat. ( = Arria sailed to Greece with the women.)

pro, when it is not being used to describe a direction or place, often has a sense of for, for the sake of.Thus: Filiae pro gloria pugnant. ( = The daughters fight for the sake of glory. )

There are several uses of the ablative that do not require a preposition. One of the most important is the ablative of means, which describes the object by which something is done.For example:  Tullia flammâ pugnat. ( = Tullia fights by means of fire.) Sempronia tubâ vocat. ( = Sempronia calls by means of a horn.) Camilla sagittis non necat. (= Camilla does not kill by means of arrows) Delia et Neria pecuniâ superant.  (Delia and Nera conquer by means of money.

Click on button to define the Latin phrase. Give only one definition, in lower case. Do not use unneeded spaces or punctuation. Use lower case letters except for the names of people or places, and the beginning of sentences and pronouns where necessary. Where there are sentences, use a period in your definition. Since the nominative and ablative singular forms use the same letter, where there is a possible ambiguity I will use â for the long a of the ablative. Thus Marcia aquam urnâ transportat. ( = Marcia transports the water by means of an urn.) Where I give you short sentence, be sure to use a period.  An X or Y will appear beside each exercise you do. You can do any as many times as you wish. Fields below will keep track of the number of correct and incorrect answers. The frame below contains a dictionary if you forget the definitions of some of the words.