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gutta cavat lapidem

Latin Phrases
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The drop hollows the stone; persistent effort, however small, can achieve great results over time.

Detailed Definition
Gutta cavat lapidem, from Ovid's Epistulae ex Ponto, is one of the most celebrated expressions of the power of persistent effort. The image of water slowly wearing away stone is among the most resonant in all of Western poetry, capturing the idea that gentleness and patience can accomplish what brute force cannot. In poetry, it appears in works celebrating perseverance, gradual change, and the quiet accumulation of effort that eventually produces transformation. It is a comfort to all who work slowly and with care.
Example
Example in poetry:
Ovid's Epistulae ex Ponto, written in exile, offer gutta cavat lapidem as a consolation — the persistent, gentle effort of letter-writing gradually wearing away the stone of imperial disfavor; Keats's description of poetry as a "gradual ripening" rather than a sudden achievement is an expression of gutta cavat lapidem — the poet's daily practice of reading and writing gradually developing the capacity for great verse; A student might write a gutta cavat lapidem poem about learning a skill — language, instrument, craft — through the daily accumulation of small efforts that seem individually insignificant but together transform; Seamus Heaney's "Digging" is a gutta cavat lapidem poem in its celebration of the patient, repetitive work of the writer and the farmer — the pen and the spade equally expressive of the principle; A contemporary poem about activism, social change, or environmental restoration might invoke gutta cavat lapidem as a counter to the despair that nothing will change — the faith that small, persistent efforts hollow even the hardest stone
Additional Notes
Gutta cavat lapidem is found in Ovid's Epistulae ex Ponto (IV.x.5): gutta cavat lapidem, non vi sed saepe cadendo (the drop hollows the stone, not by force but by falling often). Students should note the crucial addition non vi sed saepe cadendo (not by force but by falling often): the drop does not hollow the stone by being harder or more powerful than the stone but purely through persistence and repetition. This is a fundamentally different model of achievement from that of aut Caesar aut nihil: it is not about intensity, genius, or overwhelming force but about patience, regularity, and the accumulation of small efforts. For poetry students, this is an important principle of the writing life: the poem that is worked on every day, however briefly, will eventually be finished; the grand gesture of writing only when inspiration strikes may produce nothing. The phrase is also found in a similar form in Lucretius's De Rerum Natura. Related terms include perseverantia (perseverance), labor (work), and the concept of the via negativa applied to creative practice.
Also Known As
the drop hollows the stone drops hollow the stone gutta cavat lapidem non vi sed saepe cadendo
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