Curriculum Vita or Curriculum Vitae

No, curriculum vitae is singular. It means literally, "the course of one's life" with "vitae" being the genitive of "life". not the plural. The plural would be "curricula vitae".

I agree with porsche, but it it is worth adding that the single word Vita (just meaning "life," I guess) has also become common in some circles to refer to a CV. But if you are gong to say the "Curriculum" bit, it should certainly be "Vitae."

Actually, I do not entirely agree with porsche. I think the plural of "curriculum vitae" would be ""curricula vitarum" (assuming "vita" is first declension).

Well I did take Latin in school (though I admit it is rusty now), and I think your dictionary is wrong. (Unless a bit of incorrect Latin has somehow become an accepted English usage; but that seems very unlikely in this case.)

"Curriculum vitae" means course of life. If you have a whole stack of CVs these will be courses of different people's lives, so the plural, courses of lives, will be "curricula vitarum" (I have now confirmed that "vita" is in the first declension). Actually, the nominative plural of "vita" is "vitae" (like the genitive singular). Perhaps this is what confused the dictionary maker. However, what we need is the genitive plural, "vitarum."

I suppose that if the same person wrote several different alternative CVs (emphasizing different aspects of his experience, perhaps) then one might say these are "courses of a life," i.e., "curricula vitae," but I doubt whether that is usually what is wanted.

I was going to cede, but after further thought, I have to disagree and, again, state that it's curricula vitae, not curricula vitarum. Curricula vitarum would be the genitive of content, meaning a collection of documents where each individual document was describing more than one life within it. Curricula vitae would be the genitive of possession, a bunch of documents where each individual document describes only one life.

Man of the house becomes men of the house, not men of the houses even if they live in different houses. Chickens of the sea (not seas), mothers in law (not laws, even if they live in different states with different laws). To do otherwise is awkward, redundant, and wrong, regardless of the number of houses, laws, seas, lives, etc.

It should be clear even in English, It's "course of life" not "course of a life" or "course of one's life" or "course of some guy's life". The plural is courses of life, not courses of some lives. It's still just plain old "life", in the abstract, not some counted item. If life had more than one meaning it would be meanings of life not meanings of lives. It's irrelevant if each individual lives his or her own life.

As an Italian former student in Latin, I can affirm with absolute certainty that the correct form for the plural is, definitely, "curricula vitae".

"Curriculum" gets "vitae" because vitae is the genitive (possessive) form of vita, if my high school Latin serves correctly. So "curriculum vitae" means "course of [my] life."

"The term curriculum vitae means "course of life" in Latin. While it is appropriate to write either curriculum vitae or just vita, it is incorrect to use the phrase curriculum vita, the form vitae being the genitive of vita. The plural of curriculum vitae is curricula vitae."
( Look for Résumé--the accents won't paste properly).