Lorem Ipsum Translation: The Full Text of the Standard Passage Translated to English

The standard Lorem ipsum passage (“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.”) is a deliberately scrambled version of a real Latin text. Words are altered, added, and removed, so the passage has no coherent English translation line by line.

However, the original Cicero passage from De finibus bonorum et malorum (45 BC) that it derives from is: Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. The 1914 Loeb Classical Library edition by Harris Rackham translates this as: “Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain…” The first two words ‘Lorem ipsum’ are a truncation of ‘dolorem ipsum’, meaning pain itself.

The Original Latin Source

The key sentence that contains ‘lorem ipsum’ is from Cicero’s De finibus bonorum et malorum, Book I, Section 32, written around 45 BC. The full Latin from sections 1.10.32‑33 is provided below, along with the Harris Rackham English translation (words that appear in the standard Lorem ipsum passage are underlined in the Wikipedia article).

Latin:

Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem.

English (Rackham 1914):

Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally such times occur when through labor and pain he may seek some great pleasure.

The standard Lorem ipsum passage is deliberately garbled to match English letter frequency, according to Monotype typographer Dan Rhatigan. This makes it a more neutral placeholder for typesetting than real Latin.

Where the Scrambling Originated

The physical source of the garbled text may be a 1914 Loeb edition where the Latin breaks off on page 34 with “Neque porro quisquam est qui do-” and continues on page 36 with “lorem ipsum”. Richard McClintock, a Latin scholar, connected Lorem ipsum to Cicero’s writing before 1982 and published his discovery in a 1994 letter to Before & After magazine. He later admitted in a 2026 interview that his earlier claim of the text dating to the 1500s was a guess with no supporting evidence.

How the Passage Entered Modern Design

Versions of Lorem ipsum have been used in typesetting since the late 1960s, popularized by Letraset transfer sheets first published in 1966. Letraset designer Dave Farey stated that the text was supplied by British librarian James Mosley as an alternative to the “Quousque tandem abutere” passage from Cicero. The garbling was likely intentional: by altering the Latin, the text lost its literal meaning and became a pure visual stand-in.

Complete Cicero Passages (1.10.32‑33)

For reference, here are the two sections from which Lorem ipsum is derived, including the ‘Sed ut perspiciatis’ passage often cited alongside:

Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem.

Sed ut perspiciatis, unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam eaque ipsa, quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt, explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem, quia voluptas sit, aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos, qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt.

For a deeper exploration of each individual word and why the text is not real Latin, see our article on Lorem Ipsum Meaning.