First Declension

First declension (Declinatio Prima)

The circumflex accent ( ˆ ) is used to denote the length of the vowels.

The nouns the stem of which is ended by -a are ascribed to the first declension (it is often called merely a- declension). Generally, these nouns are feminines, like:

aqua f water
femina f woman

forma f form
mensa f table

rosa f rose
terra f earth

There are, however, some masculine nouns, like nauta m sailor, agricola m farmer etc., while some others, like incola mf inhabitant are both masculine and feminine.

See the exhaustive List of Masculine nouns in the First declension.

Declension of rosa and nauta

*Case*	*Singular*		*Plural*
*Case*	f	m	f	m
*Nom.* *Gen.* *Dat.* *Acc.* *Abl.* *Voc.*	rosa rosae rosae rosam rosâ rosa	nauta nautae nautae nautam nautâ nauta	rosae rosârum rosis rosas rosis rosae	nautae nautârum nautis nautas nautis nautae

Particularities
The nouns dea f godess, filia f daughter and liberta f freedwoman have doublet forms - deâbus, filiâbus and libertâbus - for Dat. and Abl. pl. These forms are older and were preserved to be made a distinction from the corresponding forms of the 2^nd declension masculines deus m god, filius m son and libertus m freedman, cf.:

deis deâbusque to the gods and to the godesses,
filiis et filiâbus to the sons and to the daughters.

The noun familia family has preserved its older genitive sg. form familias in the expressions:

pater familias father of family and mater familias mother of family.

The compound nouns with -cola and -gena have doublet forms for gen. pl. ending by -um, cf.:

agricolum and agricolârum.

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