# to/for my best friend



## Twigster8

I'd like to inscribe a ring for my girlfriend as an anniversary gift with this phrase in Latin. Can anyone please translate? Thank you so much!

"to my best friend" or "for my best friend" (the ring can only have so many characters inscribed, so whichever is shorter is preferable)


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## metaphrastes

I would think, very literally, _"ad primus amicus meus" _or _"ad optimus amicus meus". Primus _means _first, foremost, best, chief, principal, _while _optimus _is the superlative of _bonus (good). _I would be tempted to render it as _"ad melior amicus meus" _since the comparative _melior _would match the Portuguese set expression _"meu melhor amigo"_, in the sense that this particular friend is "better" or more trusted and trustworthy than others. 

I am not sure what would be more idiomatic in Latin, and even if there is some other set expression that is less literal while being less literal than my tries. Let us await for our Latin scholars to come on the thread.


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## Scholiast

salvete omnes!


metaphrastes said:


> _ad primus amicus meus" _or _"ad optimus amicus meus"._


Please no!  _ad_ requires an accusative, but in any case for the context a simple dative case is the obvious requirement.

My suggestion is the one word _amicissimae_. This conveys both the idea of the 'best' (the -_issim-_ bit) and the notion of friendship / girlfriend-ship, as the simple _amica _can stand for either.

Σ


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## metaphrastes

Scholiast said:


> Please no! _ad_ requires an accusative


Grates ago, Scholiast, for the correction! It is certainly not a small subtlety but a crass error of mine! (besides that I actually did not take attention to the OP, since I worded it in masculine, too, another crass overlooking...)

Now - just hypothetically, for the sake of exercice - would be _"ad primum amicum meum"_ or _"ad optimum amicum meum"_, in accusative case, exceedingly non-idiomatic in Latin, to the point of being dead wrong or blatant bad style?


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## Scholiast

salvete de novo!


metaphrastes said:


> just hypothetically, for the sake of exercice - would be _"ad primum amicum meum"_ or _"ad optimum amicum meum"_, in accusative case, exceedingly non-idiomatic in Latin, to the point of being dead wrong...


Cicero prefers to write letters _ad aliquem_, Caesar _alicui_ (dative)—my source for this is L&S _s.v._ _*ad*_ (which, to spare myself potential embarrassment here, I thought I had better check). But that is because for Cicero, dispatch of letters meant quite literally their conveyance or transport across an appreciable geographical distance from the writer to the recipient. Caesar, typically, thought more of the individual he was writing to.
For the present OP's purposes, Cicero's style that would only arise if She lives in San Diego and He in Vermont. I don't get the impression that this is so. For a trinket or gift destined for, and dedicated to, his Lady, the OP needs, whatever precise word (_amica, domina_, _puella_) he adopts, to stick with the dative case. ('Dative' after all means the 'giving' case).
Σ


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## autnagrag

Dative?? Do you not want the dative here? The dative carries within it that for which we often use a preposition such as to or for. Ad implies a direction, as though you were intending to insert the ring. Choose the dative for external usage.

I like the suggestion of Scholiast, a "superlative dative." It is extraordinarily efficient, and particularly well suited to such an inscription.


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## exgerman

Scholiast, wouldn't _amicissimae meae_ better express the OP's intention?


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## Scholiast

Lieber exgerman

Überflüssigkeit.

Σ


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