nemo

Usage notes

• In sentences that already have a negative word, the negative polarity item quisquam (“anyone, anybody”) is used instead of nēmō. It is preferred in Classical Latin to use "nec quisquam" instead of "et nēmō".^[1]
• Nēmō is sometimes used adjectivally or appositively with a noun that refers to a person.
• The gender is usually masculine, since the masculine is regularly used in Latin for persons of unspecified gender. It can also be feminine: this is rare, but occurs in apposition with feminine nouns, or as a pronoun, in contexts where a qualifier clearly restricts the scope to female persons. Alternatively, nūlla (the feminine of nūllus) can be used as a pronoun or adjective/determiner.

Declension

Negative pronoun and determiner, singular only.

¹The genitive nēminis is not used in Classical Latin, and is generally also avoided by later authors.
²The ablative nēmine is not used in Classical Latin, but can be seen in authors from the Imperial period onwards.

Notes on forms:

• Only the forms nēmō, nēminī and nēminem were used in Classical Latin.
• The genitive nēminis is attested in some preclassical authors, and in the Christian poet Commodian (c. 3rd-century).^[2] Classical Latin authors regularly used nūllī̆us (the genitive singular form of nūllus) instead, and later authors typically follow classical practice in this regard.
• The ablative nēmine occurs a couple of times in Plautus and appears to have been used freely by prose authors from Tacitus onwards, but was not used in Classical Latin. Wackernagel explains its initial rarity as a consequence of there being few circumstances when the negative particle *ne would have originally been followed directly by an ablative noun.^[2]
  • After prepositions that govern the ablative case, Classical Latin authors instead used nūllō and nūllā, the masculine and feminine ablative singular forms of nūllus. Another alternative was to use nūllō adjectivally with homine. See Citations:nullus.
  • For ablative absolute phrases, Wackernagel assumes it was originally preferred to attach the negative prefix in- to the participle or adjective, as in "omnibus inscientibus" (Cicero In Pisonem 89.10) or "inscientibus cunctis" (Livy Ab Urbe Condita 7.5.3), rather than marking negation on the pronoun.^[2] Accordingly, Wackernagel regards constructions containing nūllō and a non-negated participle, such as "nullo volente intercedere" (Valerius Maximus, 1st-century), as an innovation.^[2] Nevertheless, there do seem to be some examples of ablative absolutes containing nūllō already in Cicero, such as "Palam iam cum hoste nullo impediente bellum iustum geremus (In Catilinam, 2.1.12),^[3] "Hoc quam habet vim nisi illam, nihil expedire quod non deceat, etiam si id possis nullo refellente optinere?" (De Officiis 3.77.20), "Ipsae enim ferae nullo insequente saepe incidunt" (De Officiis 3.68.6) and "qui in eum primus invectus est nullo adsentiente" (Epistulae ad Familiares 12.2.1.10).
  • In later authors, nēmine can be found in either of the above contexts; for example, it seems to have been used regularly by Augustine of Hippo, although his work also includes two examples of nūllō in an ablative absolute.^[4] However, from at least the 19th century onwards, Latinists came to be aware of the absence of the form in classical authors and consequently eschewed it, as exemplified by the schoolboy mnemonic "From nemo let me never see, neminis and nemine".
• No plural forms are attested in Classical Latin (compare the non-use of "*nobodies" as a plural negative indefinite pronoun in English). In postclassical Latin, there are some rare examples of plural forms (such as nominative/accusative nēminēs or dative/ablative nēminibus) in contexts where Classical Latin would have either a singular form of nēmō (as a pronoun) or a plural form of nūllus (as an adjective or pronoun).

Derived terms

Descendants

• Italian: nimo
• Megleno-Romanian: nimea, nimini
• Romanian: nimeni, nime
• Sardinian: nemos