fictus

Fictus is a Latin term that functions as an adjective and as the past participle of fingere, meaning to shape, fashion, or counterfeit. In classical usage, fictus describes something made or imagined, and it carries senses such as feigned, fictitious, or contrived. The masculine nominative singular is fictus; the feminine is ficta and the neuter fictum.

In English-language scholarship, fictus appears primarily in Latin phrases or in glosses rather than as an independent English word. The direct English equivalents are typically fictitious or feigned, depending on context. As a standalone term, fictus is not commonly used outside Latin or Latinized scholarly notation.

In philology and rhetoric, fictus may appear in phrases such as res ficta (a feigned matter) or narratio ficta (a fictitious narrative). In such contexts, it signals that something is not real or is deliberately constructed for rhetorical or literary purposes. Outside of Latin phrases, English authors usually translate or render the sense rather than retain the form fictus.

Taxonomic and scientific naming conventions occasionally encounter Latin adjectives like fictus as a species epithet, where it agrees with the genus in gender. Such usage is incidental and follows standard Latin grammar rather than establishing a fixed meaning for fictus on its own.

See also: fingere; fictitious; Latin grammar and participles.