Word.ws English Dictionary

carpe diem

UK/ˌkɑː.piː ˈdaɪ.ɛm//ˌkɑɹ.pi ˈdaɪ.ɛm/

carpe diem proverb: enjoy the present, make the most of today, (common mistranslation) seize the day.

Proverb

carpe diem

  1. Enjoy the present, make the most of today, (common mistranslation) seize the day.
    • It is the carpe diem religion; but the carpe diem religion is not the religion of happy people, but of very unhappy people.1905, G. K. Chesterton, Heretics, New York: John Lane, →OL
    • Indeed, in an extreme carpe diem society, children are raised without being given any sense that they have a transgenerational duty to the as yet unborn— the duty to leave them a better world.2007 July 30, Lee Harris, “Can Carpe Diem Societies Survive?”, in The Suicide of Reason: Radical Islam's Threat to the West, New York: Basic Books, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OL, page 241

carpe diem meaning in Indonesian and Persian

carpe diem in Indonesian

seize the day
raih hari ini

carpe diem in Persian

seize the day
دمغنیمتشمری, خوشباشی

Synonyms of carpe diem

Forms of carpe diem

alternative form (humorous)carpe the diem

Origin of carpe diem

Learned borrowing from Latin carpe diem (“enjoy the day”, literally “pluck (or harvest) the day”).

Questions about carpe diem

What does carpe diem mean?
Carpe diem means enjoy the present, make the most of today, (common mistranslation) seize the day.
What is carpe diem in Indonesian?
Carpe diem in Indonesian is raih hari ini. See Carpe diem meaning in Indonesian.
What part of speech is carpe diem?
Carpe diem is a proverb.
How do you pronounce carpe diem?
Carpe diem is pronounced /ˌkɑː.piː ˈdaɪ.ɛm/ (UK).

Words near carpe diem in the dictionary

  1. Carpatho-Rusyns
  2. Carpatho-Ukraine
  3. Carpathos
  4. Carpatin
  5. Carpatins
  6. carpe diem
  7. carpe the diem
  8. carpectomies
  9. carpectomy
  10. carped
  11. carped the diem

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: carpe diem (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-carpe diem.ogg, en-au-carpe diem.ogg.

Cite this entry: “carpe diem.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/carpe_diem. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.