1. Home
2. Idioms
3. carpe diem

carpe diem

---

---

carpe diem

Enjoy and make the most of the present, especially opportunities as they arise. A Latin phrase used by the Roman poet Horace (65–8 BCE), it is popularly translated as "seize the day." You can't simply sit back and wait for good things to come tomorrow, you have to make things happen as you want them to. Carpe diem!

carpe diem

Enjoy the present and don't worry about the future, as in It's a beautiful day, so forget tomorrow's test-carpe diem! Latin for "seize the day," an aphorism found in the Roman writer Horace's Odes, this phrase has been used in English since the early 1800s.