Latin in Harry Potter

A colleague and I had a neat opportunity this morning to sit down with a student and chat about the Latin in Harry Potter. The student was writing a research paper on the classical roots of the story’s plot, characters, and language.

There are posts scattered all over the internet that discuss these things, but I thought I would post our list here because I might want to add to it over the years.

Why include so much Latin?

Latin echoes throughout our cultures. We hear its words and understand its concepts even when we don’t realize it. The student this morning immediately got this with words like maleficent and Mordor and Voldemort. Even people who have never studied Latin hear ominous connotations with mal and mor words.

There are no doubt several reasons why Rowling used so much Latin in Harry Potter, but we can say at least say that Latin adds a depth to her characters; it builds in multifaceted associations that have echoed throughout languages for millennia.

Let’s get to the examples.

(These are notes from a quick meeting before school and not intended to be an authoritative guide. You can always look up Latin and Greek words yourself and draw your own conclusion.)

Names

Minerva: goddess of wisdom and strategy; Athena in Greek
Albus Dumbeldore: albus, white
Malfoy: malus, bad evil / foi (French), trust
Draco: draco, dragon
Hermoine: daughter of Helen of Troy and Menelaus of Sparta
Remus Lupin: lupus, wolf / lupinus, wolf-like / Remus, founder of Rome that was nursed by a wolf when a baby
Casandra: in Trojan War stories, daughter of a king cursed by Apollo to always prophesy the truth yet never be believed
Sybill: priestess of Delphi, an oracle
Rubeus Hagrid: rubeus, red in color, also a euphemism for “drunk”
Voldemort: mors, death / volo, to fly / vol (French), flight / de (French), from
Narcissa: Narcissus, a figure so beautiful he fell in love with his own reflection
Severus Snape: severus, strict
Pomona: pomum, fruit
Dolores Umbridge: dolor, sadness, grief, pain (dolores is the plural of dolor)
Fenrir: a monstrous wolf of Norse mythology, Loki had him chained up
Filius: filius, son
Sinistra: sinistra, left, tricky, evil
Aurora: aurora, dawn (first sunlight of the day)

Spells

Crucio: crucio, I kill, crucify, torture
Imperio: imperio, I command
Expellio: expello, to drive away / arma, weapons
Sectumsempra: sectum, cut, secare, to cut / semper, always
Levicorpus: levo, I lift, make levitate / corpus, body
Leviosa: levo, I lift, make levitate
Morsmordre: mors, death / mordre (French), to bite
Aguamenti: aqua, water / agua (Spanish), water / mens, mentis, mind, will
Stupefy: stupido, to stun / stupidus, amazed, dumbfounded / fieri, to become
Rennevate: enervare, to weaken > nervare, to strengthen, renervare, to re-strengthen
Incarcercerous: carcer, prison / in, in
Lumos: lumen, light

Potions

Felix felicis: felix, fortunate, lucky / felicis, of the lucky
Veritas: veritas, truth / verus, true
Serum: serum, a type of liquid
Amortentia: amor, love / tenere, to hold

Creatures

Unicorns: monoceros/μονόκερος, known from Greek and Latin literature, but were simply one-horned creatures. At some point this word took on magical, mythical associations.
Centaur: centaurus, a horse/human creature. Chiron was a centaur and a famous teacher of heros like Hercules and Achilles.
Sirens/σειρήν were birds with the faces of women. With their voices they enticed sailors and then killed them (from Lewis and Short’s lexicon)
Obscurials: obscurus, dark, shadowy
Demiguises: a demigod is someone who is part god, like Hercules / a guise relates to hiding and covering appearance