ebamus

ebamus is a Latin verb form that appears in some manuscripts and grammars as a first-person plural imperfect indicative. In Classical Latin, the standard imperfect endings for the first person plural are -bāmus, as in edebāmus (we were eating) from edo, edere, or ibāmus (we were going) from eo, ire. The form ebamus is not a canonical lemma in most dictionaries; it is generally treated as a contracted or scribal variant of edebāmus or ibāmus that has occurred in a minority of sources.

Scholars commonly regard ebamus as a spelling or metrical artifact rather than a separate grammatical item. Its appearance can result from elision, assimilation, or orthographic variation in manuscripts and early printed editions. When ebamus is encountered, editors and grammarians typically attempt to restore the underlying longer form (edebāmus or ibāmus) based on the context, the verb in question, and poetic meter.

Usage notes: ebamus does not change the essential meaning or tense beyond representing the same imperfect indicative of the same verb family. If encountered in a text, it is treated as the same verbal form as the corresponding longer variant, with the understanding that the actual verb belongs to either edo-edere or eo-ire paradigms, depending on context.

In modern Latin instruction, ebamus is seldom used as an example in isolation; learners are directed to the standard forms edebāmus and ibāmus for the imperfect tense in the respective verb classes. See also Latin verb conjugation, imperfect tense, and Latin orthography.