ars

Ars is a Latin noun meaning art, skill, or craft. It is feminine and belongs to the third declension; its principal forms are ars (nominative singular), artis (genitive singular), artem (accusative singular), and artes (nominative plural), artium (genitive plural).

In classical and later Latin, ars covers both the broad sense of art as a field and the sense of craft or technique within making things. It appears in well-known phrases and titles that have influenced later thought and language. Notable examples include ars poetica (the art of poetry), ars amatoria (the art of love), and ars longa, vita brevis (art is long, life is short), the latter a saying attributed to Hippocrates and transmitted through Latin.

During the medieval and Renaissance periods, ars nova emerged as a label for innovations in music and the arts, signaling a shift toward new stylistic approaches. The term also underpins the modern English word art and yields related derivatives such as artist, artisanal, and artistry, illustrating the historical link between Latin terminology and contemporary concepts of creativity and skilled practice.

In modern English usage, ars typically appears only in quotations, scholarly discussion, or in Latin phrases kept for stylistic or historical reasons, rather than as a common everyday word. Its primary significance today lies in its historical role as the root concept from which the vocabulary of art and craft in many languages has developed.