Latinist
noun
Lat·in·ist
ˈla-tə-nist 
ˈlat-nist
: a specialist in the Latin language or Roman culture
Examples of Latinist in a Sentence
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In Italy, academics like Ettore Romagnoli organized an authoritarian spectacle to celebrate two millennia of Horace, the priest Vittorio Genovesi wrote encomiums to Italian imperial ambitions in Rome’s Mare Nostrum, and the Latinist Luigi Illuminati who penned an epic dedicated to Il Duce.
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Literary Hub, 10 Feb. 2026
Reginald Foster, a former plumber’s apprentice from Wisconsin who, in four decades as an official Latinist of the Vatican, dreamed in Latin, cursed in Latin, banked in Latin and ultimately tweeted in Latin, died on Christmas Day at a nursing home in Milwaukee.
—Margalit Fox, New York Times, 27 Dec. 2020
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Literary Hub, 10 Feb. 2026
Reginald Foster, a former plumber’s apprentice from Wisconsin who, in four decades as an official Latinist of the Vatican, dreamed in Latin, cursed in Latin, banked in Latin and ultimately tweeted in Latin, died on Christmas Day at a nursing home in Milwaukee.
—Margalit Fox, New York Times, 27 Dec. 2020
Cite this Entry
“Latinist.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Latinist. Accessed 21 Feb. 2026.
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