Rerum is the genitive plural of the all-purpose Latin word res. This word has a whole range of meanings encompassing "thing", "event", "deed", "matter", "affair", "fact", "property", "advantage", "lawsuit", and many more besides. Which translation you chose depends heavily on the context. The genitive case represents relationships that are expressed in English using the preposition "of" or the possessive case.
One famous use of the word rerum is in the title of a philosophical poem by the classical author Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus), De rerum natura. This can be translated simply as "On the Nature of Things", though sometimes the title is given as "On the Nature of the Universe" or simply "The Way Things Are".
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