Esperanto

Adverb

iam

1. sometime, ever (indeterminate correlative of time)
2. once
   • 2000, Antoine de Saint Exupéry, La Eta Princo, translated by Pierre Delaire from the French

     Iam, kiam mi estis sesjara, mi vidis belegan bildon en iu libro pri la praarbaro, titolita "Travivitaj rakontoj".

     Once, when I was six years old, I saw a magnificent picture in a book about the primeval forest, titled "True Stories".

Derived terms

• iam ajn ‎(“anytime”)
• iama

Latin

Alternative forms

• jam

Etymology

One old acc.sg.f. (as tam, quam, nam), from one Proto-Indo-European stem *yo-, thematic derivation of the anaphoric stem i-, ey-. See also Ancient Greek ὅς ‎(hós), Sanskrit यद् ‎(yás, yā, yad), Avestan 𐬫𐬋 ‎(yō), Phrygian ιος ‎(yos), Gothic 𐌾𐌰 ‎(ja), 𐌾𐌰𐌹 ‎(jai, “yes”), Old High German ja, jā ‎(“yes”) (German ja), Old English ġēa ‎(“yea, yes”) (English yea). More at yes.

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /jam/, [jã]
• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈi.am/, [ˈi.ã]

Adverb

iam ‎(not comparable)

1. already

   Birota iam refecta est.‎

   The bicycle has already been repaired.

2. now
   • c. 254 BCE – 184 BCE, Plautus, Curculio 5.3.5

     CAPPADOX: Iam iam faciam ut iusseris.^[1]

     CAPPADOX: Here, here, I’ll do as you say!^[2]

3. anymore
4. soon

Usage notes

Iam means, generally, “at some point previous” or “since some point previous”. In English, already, the most common translation, is used only to emphasize that this point might have been expected to be later, whereas now is used to emphasize that the statement was once false, even when the statement refers to a point in the past or future. Iam is used to express either. (Likewise, the most common Latin word for now, nunc, denotes only the literal present moment.) Also, where iam means now, it is often used in negative sentences, in which the most common English construction uses anymore.

Derived terms

• etiam
• iamdudum
• non iam
• iam pridem
• quia
• quoniam

Descendants

References

• iam in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• Félix Gaffiot (1934), “iam”, in Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Paris: Hachette.
• Meissner, Carl; Auden, Henry William (1894) Latin Phrase-Book, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • he has been absent five years: quinque annos or sextum (iam) annum abest
    
  • to be middle-aged (i.e. between thirty and forty): tertiam iam aetatem videre
    
  • those ideas have long ago been given up: illae sententiae iam pridem explosae et eiectae sunt (Fin. 5. 8. 23)
    
  • as if the victory were already won: sicut parta iam atque explorata victoria
    
• iam in Ramminger, Johann (accessed 16 July 2016) Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700, pre-publication website, 2005-2016
• Sihler, Andrew L. (1995) New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press

1. ↑ Latin
2. ↑ English

Portuguese

Alternative forms

• ião (obsolete)
• iaõ (obsolete)
• hião (obsolete)
• hiaõ (obsolete)
• hiam (obsolete)

Pronunciation

• (Portugal, Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈi.ɐ̃w̃/

Verb

iam

1. third-person plural (eles and elas, also used with vocês and others) imperfect indicative of ir

Serbo-Croatian

Etymology

From imati, through elision of /m/.

Verb

iam ?

1. (colloquial) first-person singular present tense form of imati.