Latinist

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person with specialized knowledge of the Latin language and its classical texts and culture
2. Someone who studies, teaches, or has deep expertise in Latin language, literature, and ancient Roman writings
3. A scholar devoted to the study of Latin as a language and to understanding works written in it

Etymology: "Latinist" is about as transparent as English words get: it is simply "Latin" with the suffix "-ist," which marks a person who practises or specialises in something. Add it to a language name and you get a student or scholar of that language, so a Latinist is someone devoted to Latin, whether a teacher, translator or researcher. The suffix does most of the work here. "-ist" came into English from Latin and Greek, where it denoted an agent, someone who does or follows a particular activity, and it has been attached to all sorts of bases, from "artist" to "pianist." The base "Latin" itself traces back to the Latium region of central Italy, the homeland of the Latin-speaking peoples.