albae

Albae is the feminine plural form of the Latin adjective albus, meaning white. In Latin, adjectives agree with the gender, number, and case of the nouns they modify, so albus has forms such as albus (masc. sing.), alba (fem. sing.), album (neut. sing.), and albae (fem. plur.). When used as a substantive, albae can function as “the white ones” or “white things” without an explicit noun, depending on context.

In classical Latin, albae typically appears to describe feminine plural nouns or to stand in as a shorthand nominal phrase. Because Latin adjectives decline to match their noun, albae will align with feminine plural subjects, objects, or predicative uses in the sentence. The form is most often encountered in grammar notes, Latin dictionaries, and philological discussions rather than in everyday modern usage.

Beyond grammar, albae is most commonly seen as part of historical or philological references to Latin texts. It is not a distinct modern term with a separate field of study, but rather a grammatical form that appears in Latin literature and in scholarly discussions of Latin morphology and word formation. The related masculine and neuter forms—albus and album—are used similarly to describe white things or to serve as substantive phrases when the context calls for it.

See also: albus, alba, alba (as a feminine noun form in Latin).