ex nihilo nihil fit Phrase
Meaning:
(1.) nothing comes from nothing (2.) From nothing comes nothing., Out of nothing, nothing comes. (3.) From nothing comes nothing., Out of nothing, nothing comes.
Comment
From Lucretius, and said earlier by Empedocles. Its original meaning is "work is required to succeed", but its modern meaning is a more general "everything has its origins in something" (cf. causality). It is commonly applied to the conservation laws in philosophy and modern science. Ex nihilo often used in conjunction with the term creation, as in creatio ex nihilo, meaning "creation out of nothing". It is often used in philosophy or theology in connection with the proposition that God created the universe from nothing. It is also mentioned in the final ad-lib of the Monty Python song Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.
Word-for-word analysis:
A much more detailed analysis with detection of relationships or clauses can be found in our Sentence Analysis! Try it out!
More Information
Embed this Entry on your SiteVocabulary Groups: Not part of any Vocabulary Group.
Find more Latin words with our Advanced Search functionality.
"-" is the shortcut for "this form does not exist"
For Students
Translating a text right now?
Analysing your text word-by-word and detecting ACI, NCI, P.C. and Abl.Abs.!
Studying for tomorrow's vocab revision?
Give a chance to the only Vocabulary Trainer asking for Latin principal parts!
Looking for a professionally instructed Latin course? Try Wheelock's Latin: Chapters 1-15 Lectures.
Add this word to your vocabulary groupMost phrases were taken from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons License.