Erm, the actual Latin meaning of ‘conclave’ is going viral for a very immature, x-rated reason

Well, the conclave is upon us. A momentous day for those amongst us who fell completely in love with the film of the same name last year, that saw Ralph Fiennes star in a fictional conclave and honestly educated what I would assume is the majority of us own the camp sensibilities that go down in the election of a new pope. After Pope Francis died, there was so much renewed interest in the process of a conclave that apparently the film viewing figures of Conclave went up over 200 per cent. Crazy. But what’s even more crazy is that as the conclave begins today and the world readies itself for the papal election, people are finding out the real meaning of the word conclave and its immature translation from Latin.

Grow up guys, it’s a holy day. I’m not even Catholic and I feel shame for laughing. Sort of.

The Latin has an eyebrow raising word involved

Basically guys, not to make you immaturely spit your drink out like you’re in a sitcom like half of Twitter are doing right now, but the word conclave comes from the latin “cum clave”. Told you it was silly.

As I mentioned, the word conclave comes from Latin, and its roots are actually pretty interesting. It traces back to conclāve, which is formed from con– (meaning “with” or “together”) and clāvis (meaning “key”). So while it wasn’t literally written as cum clave – which would just be a phrase meaning “with a key” the idea behind the word is exactly that: a room that can be locked.

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In ancient times, conclāve simply meant a private room or enclosed space. But over the centuries, especially in religious settings, it took on a more specific meaning. Most notably, it came to describe what we’re all living through right now – an extremely culturally important event that gets the worlds attention as the cardinals secretly vote. The name fits perfectly, since they’re literally behind closed doors locked in until a decision is made.

Twitter is lowering the tone of course, but when the Latin meaning of the word conclave on paper looks like that you have to sort of let the children off.

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