I am happy to have another day of life today, and to write about another Latin phrase. Just a recap, I am pulling these phrases from the book Amo, Amas, Amat and More, by Eugene Ehrlich. Let's dive right in!
ab aeterno
ahb i-TEHR-noh
since the beginning of time
The explanation given by the author is: 'Anything that has existed ab aeterno, literally "from eternity," has no assignable date of origin. This phrase can be used to describe almost any human folly: "Wars have been fought ab aeterno."'
In this phrase we see again the word "ab", meaning "from" or "since" in this case. We'll see that word pop-up more in the future, I suspect. Interestingly, although spoken Latin and Hebrew have some overlap in the timeline, this word "ab" is vastly different. So if you are coming from a Hebraic background, you'll have to change how you think of this word.
Also, I like the Latin spelling of eternity, aeterno. It is plain to see how our word for eternity has descended from this. However, for more etymology, I like to use this site:
https://www.etymonline.com/word/eternity
We see here that our use of the word eternity came to us through French, and then from Latin.
Til next time, valete!
Jonny