nemis

nemis is a Latin noun meaning “enemy.” The word is a masculine form of the third‑declension noun group and appears under the nominative singular nemis, genitive nemis, dative nemi, accusative nemem, ablative nemi. The adjectival counterpart is nemius, meaning “hostile” or “contrary.” The term is attested in several ancient authors, though it is rare compared with the more common Latin word hostis. Notable citations include Livy, *Ab urbe condita* (book 13, chapter 14), where the phrase “cuiusquam nemis” is used to indicate that a person had an enemy, and Caesar’s *Commentarii de Bello Gallico* (chapter 4), where the writer contrasts the Roman legion with the enemy forces, occasionally using nemis in a poetic or rhetorical context.

The origin of nemis is rooted in the Proto‑Indo‑European root *ń̥mo-s, which gives rise to related terms in other Indo‑European languages, such as the Sanskrit “nami‑h” (“enemy”) and the Greek “neō” in “neōdō,” meaning “to give to a hostile party.” The noun was commonly used in legal and military writings to denote an adversary or a person of hostile disposition. Over time, the more frequently used Latin noun hostis displaced nemis in everyday speech, contributing to its largely archaic status.

In modern contexts, the word nemis is occasionally employed in scholarly works on classical Latin for its precise semantic nuance or as an example in discussions of rare lexical items. It has no direct link to the English word nemesis, although the two etymologically share the same PIE root.