dixistis

Dixistis is the second person plural perfect indicative active form of the Latin verb dicere, “to say” or “to tell.” The form is built from the perfect stem dix- with the personal ending -istis, indicating you (plural) performed the action. The verb dicere has the principal parts dico, dicere, dixi, dictus, from which perfect forms such as dixi, dixisti, dixit, diximus, dixistis, dixerunt are formed.

Usage and meaning: In Classical Latin, dixistis conveys a completed act of saying in the past and is commonly used in narrative or direct speech to attribute speech to a group. The basic translation is “you said,” though in some contexts it can be rendered as “you have said” depending on the temporal interpretation within a sentence.

Related forms and morphology: The form is part of a complete set built from the same stem, including dixi (I said), dixisti (you said, singular), dixit (he said), diximus (we said), dixistis (you said, plural), and dixerunt (they said). The verb belongs to the third conjugation and uses the perfect endings rather than the present or imperfect ones.

Example: Veritatem dixistis. translates to “You told the truth.” Latin word order is flexible, but the accusative object veritatem commonly follows the verb or precedes it for emphasis.

Historical context: Dixistis appears in Classical Latin texts across poetry and prose as part of reported or quoted speech. Its use illustrates standard Latin verb conjugation patterns for dicere and the narrative technique of attributing spoken content. See also dicere and Latin verb conjugation.