Adverb
iam (not comparable)
- already
- now
27 BCE – 25 BCE,
Titus Livius,
Ab Urbe Condita 6.42.2:
- Refecti decumum iidem tribuni, deinde Sextius et Licinius dē decemvirīs sacrōrum ex parte dē plēbe creandīs lēgem pertulēre. creātī quīnque patrum quīnque plēbis; gradūque eō jam via facta ad consulātum vidēbātur.
- Elected for the tenth time already, Sextus and Licinius the tribunes made a law for decemvirs of Rome's sacred rites to be issued in part from the people. Five were elected from the patricians, five others from the people; by this same move, a straight path to consulship had now been open to them.
8 CE,
Ovid,
Metamorphoses 15.871:
- jamque opus exēgī, quod nec Jovis īra nec ignis
nec poterit ferrum nec edāx abolēre vetustās.[1]- And now, I have completed a great work, which not Jove's anger, and not fire nor steel, nor fast-consuming time can sweep away.[2]
- “iam iam,” repeated, doubly emphatic, e.g., now — now, this very moment, this instant, any time now, as of now, now indeed
c. 190 BCE,
Plautus,
Curculio 707:
- CAPPADOX: Iam iam faciam ut iusseris.[3]
- CAPPADOX: Now, now, I’ll do as you say (lit., as you will have ordered)![4]
29 BCE – 19 BCE,
Virgil,
Aeneid 4.371–372:
- “Iam iam nec maxuma Iūnō / nec Sāturnius haec oculīs pater aspicit aequīs.”
- “Right now, neither do supreme Juno nor the Father [who is son of] Saturn regard these [matters] with the impartial eyes [of justice].”
Or, “No longer do ….”
- anymore
- soon
- (in transitions) now, again, moreover, once more
Usage notes
Iam means, generally, “at some point previous” or “since some point previous”. In English, already, the most common translation, is used only to emphasize that this point might have been expected to be later, whereas now is used to emphasize that the statement was once false, even when the statement refers to a point in the past or future. Iam is used to express either. (Likewise, the most common Latin word for now, nunc, denotes only the literal present moment.) Also, where iam means now, it is often used in negative sentences, in which the most common English construction uses anymore.
However, note that when iam is strengthened as "iam iam" or "iam nunc", the meaning shifts to the present and has a meaning equivalent to nunc (“now, at this exact moment”).
Derived terms
- et i, et i., et iam
- iam iam ("at this very moment, precisely now")
- iam nunc ("even now, as things now stand; just now, at this very time")
- iam pridem ("long ago, long since")
- iamdudum
- non iam
- quon iam
Descendants
- Asturian: yá
- → Basque: ia
- Catalan: ja
- Esperanto: jam
- Franco-Provençal: ja
- French: jà
- Friulian: za, ğa
- Galician: xa
- Ido: ja
- Interlingua: jam, ja
- Italian: già
- Portuguese: já
- Sardinian: gia
- Sicilian: già
- Spanish: ya
- Venetian: xà, zà
References
- “jam”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “iam”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
- iam in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
- Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book, London: Macmillan and Co.
- he has been absent five years: quinque annos or sextum (iam) annum abest
- to be middle-aged (i.e. between thirty and forty): tertiam iam aetatem videre
- those ideas have long ago been given up: illae sententiae iam pridem explosae et eiectae sunt (Fin. 5. 8. 23)
- as if the victory were already won: sicut parta iam atque explorata victoria
- iam in Ramminger, Johann (2016 July 16 (last accessed)) Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700, pre-publication website, 2005-2016
- Sihler, Andrew L. (1995) New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, →ISBN
