paréntis

Paréntis is a Latin grammatical form encountered as the genitive singular of the noun parens, which means parent. In classical Latin, parens denotes a parent or guardian, and its genitive singular is parentis. The form paréntis—with an acute accent—may appear in some modern editions or dictionaries to indicate pronunciation, but the standard classical spelling is parentis.

The genitive paréntis is used to express possession, as in phrases such as liber parentis (the parent’s book) or consilium parentis (the parent’s plan). This illustrates how Latin nouns decline for case and number, with parens functioning as a third-declension noun in many dictionaries, though exact declensional patterns can vary slightly by grammatical treatment.

In English-language references, paréntis is typically not treated as a separate word but as the morphemic form parentis applied to contexts requiring a possessive sense tied to the noun parens. The overarching meaning remains tied to “of a parent,” rather than representing an independent lexical entry.

Paréntis thus serves as a morphological form rather than a standalone term. Its relevance is primarily in the study of Latin grammar, philology, and historical texts, where correct identification of case forms aids interpretation and translation. For broader linguistic study, related concepts include the noun parens (parent) and derived terms in Romance languages that descended from this root, though those languages have their own distinct inflectional systems.