Imperative Mood
When a Roman wants to give a direct order, he reaches for the imperative — and the form is unusually clean. Singular = the present stem unadorned: amā ("love!"), monē ("warn!"), rege ("rule!"), audī ("hear!").
Plural just adds -te: amāte, monēte, regite, audīte. Four short verbs drop the final vowel and have to be memorized: dīc ("say!"), dūc ("lead!"), fac ("do!"), fer ("carry!").
Deponents look passive but command actively: sequere ("follow!"), loquere ("speak!").
There is also a future imperative in -tō, -tōte — Roman legal Latin and the Twelve Tables live in this form (estō = "he shall be"), and certain verbs (sciō, meminī, habeō) prefer the future imperative even in everyday use (scītō = "know thou").
The trap to know up front is the negative. Latin does not form a negative imperative by sticking nē in front of the present imperative — nē timē exists only in poetry and Plautus. Classical prose uses nōlī / nōlīte + infinitive (nōlī putāre = "don't suppose") or nē + perfect subjunctive (nē fēceris = "don't do it").
Read "do not X" wrong here and you will write Latin no Roman ever wrote.
Learnings0 core · 1 AP claim
AP framework claims (1)— verbatim from AP CED
A direct command or entreaty in the second person. Future imperative shifts the moment of action and is the workhorse of legal Latin.
Three very different shapes share one job — "do X!" Picking the wrong negative is the single most common Latin-composition mistake at the AP level.
See It In Action
— A&G § 448
Senate-floor Latin. dīc (not dīce) is one of the four memorize-them-now irregulars (dīc, dūc, fac, fer) — the final -e drops in the singular but returns in the plural (dīcite).
— Cic. Lig. 33
Cicero's go-to negative imperative. Literally "be unwilling to suppose," but Romans heard it as a soft "please don't think." This is the construction to default to when composing classical prose — it never sounds wrong.
— Plin. H. N. xviii. 334
A farming maxim from Pliny the Elder. The future imperative -tō + nē is the Roman precept register — read it as "thou shalt not." This is the one place nē + an imperative form is genuinely classical (because the imperative is future, not present).
— Cic. Div. ii. 127
Cicero quoting an oracular precept — and the contrast is the whole lesson. Positive command = future imperative facitō. Negative command = nē + perfect subjunctive fēceris. Latin refuses to put nē in front of the present imperative fac; it switches construction instead.
The single most common AP composition mistake is forming a negative command by sticking nē in front of the present imperative. Latin does not work that way in prose. The form nē + present imperative (nē timē, nē crēde) is poetic and Plautine — Cicero, Caesar, and standard exam prose use one of three different constructions instead.
nē + present imperative
nē fac, nē timē, nē putā
(only legal in poetry / Plautus)
nōlī(te) + inf. — OR — nē + perfect subj. — OR — cavē + pres. subj.
nōlī putāre; nē fēceris; cavē putēs
do not suppose; do not do it; do not suppose
Tip: When you need a negative command in prose, reach for nōlī / nōlīte + infinitive first — it is always safe and slightly polite. Use nē + perfect subjunctive when you want force ("don't you dare"). Reserve nē + present imperative for translating verse.
You want to write "do not be afraid" in classical Latin prose. Which form should you use?
Study Tips
- •Default singular = present stem with no ending: amā, monē, rege, audī. Default plural = stem + -te: amāte, monēte, regite, audīte. Get those four conjugations into muscle memory before anything else.
- •Memorize the four short irregulars as a single block: dīc, dūc, fac, fer ("say, lead, do, carry"). Their plurals are regular: dīcite, dūcite, facite, ferte.
- •For deponents, the present imperative singular looks exactly like the present infinitive active of a non-deponent (sequere, loquere, hortāre). Don't read it as a passive infinitive — context shows it is a command.
- •Negative imperative is the killer trap on AP exams. The two safe classical patterns are nōlī(te) + infinitive (most polite) and nē + perfect subjunctive (more peremptory). If you see nē + present imperative in a passage, it is almost certainly poetry or Plautus.
- •The future imperative in -tō, -tōte signals legal, religious, or proverbial register. Translate it with "shall" or "is to": iūsta imperia suntō = "there are to be lawful authorities."