The Lord's Prayer in Latin: Pater noster
If you know the Lord's Prayer in English, this is one of the easiest ways into real Latin, because you already know what every line means. It has been said in Latin for well over a thousand years, and it left its mark on English along the way.
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The text and translation
Pater noster, qui es in caelis: sanctificetur nomen tuum;
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name;
Word by word
- Pater
- Father
- noster
- our
- qui
- who
- es
- are
- in
- in
- caelis
- the heavens
- sanctificetur
- may be hallowed
- nomen
- name
- tuum
- your
adveniat regnum tuum; fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra.
thy kingdom come; thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Word by word
- adveniat
- may come
- regnum
- kingdom
- tuum
- your
- fiat
- may be done
- voluntas
- will
- tua
- your
- sicut
- as
- in
- in
- caelo
- heaven
- et
- also
- in
- on
- terra
- earth
Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie;
Give us this day our daily bread;
Word by word
- Panem
- bread
- nostrum
- our
- cotidianum
- daily
- da
- give
- nobis
- to us
- hodie
- today
et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris;
and forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors;
Word by word
- et
- and
- dimitte
- forgive
- nobis
- us
- debita
- debts
- nostra
- our
- sicut
- as
- et
- also
- nos
- we
- dimittimus
- forgive
- debitoribus
- debtors
- nostris
- our
et ne nos inducas in tentationem; sed libera nos a malo.
and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Word by word
- et
- and
- ne
- not
- nos
- us
- inducas
- lead
- in
- into
- tentationem
- temptation
- sed
- but
- libera
- free
- nos
- us
- a
- from
- malo
- evil
What to notice
- Pater noster means “our Father”, with the words the other way round. Latin adjectives often follow their noun. The English word paternoster comes straight from this phrase.
- Panem nostrum cotidianum means “our daily bread”. The -um endings mark all three words as the object: the thing being given.
- debita nostra means “our debts”, and you can see the word debt in it. English “trespasses” comes from a different tradition of translation.
- sed libera nos a malo means “but deliver us from evil”. Liberate comes from libera, and malice and malign are relatives of malo.
Read it yourself
Urling teaches the words in this text first, so that when you reach it you can read it in Latin. It uses short lessons, and nothing has to be memorised from a list.
Learn to read this in Latin
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Sources
Pater noster, Latin Wikisource (liturgical text; accents removed, æ written ae); English: literal translation by Claude (AI)
Text licence: Public domain.
Language pack licence: Texts public domain; annotation and translations CC BY-SA 4.0.
Texts: Latin Wikisource (public domain; Catullus ed. Merrill, with long-vowel marks; the Vulgate passages in the Clementine text). English: Douay-Rheims (public domain) for the Vulgate passages; other sentence translations and all tagging by Claude (AI), checked against Wiktionary; not yet reviewed by a person.
The introduction and notes on this page were written by Claude (AI). Word glosses are AI-assisted, and so is the English unless the source above names another translator.