What's the difference between quin and quominus?

The use of quin  and quominus  is infamously tricky, but if you can deploy them in your prose composition
it will make your work appear idiomatic and, therefore, sophisticated as well as indicative of a solid
understanding of the language.

We are concerned here with clauses of hindering and prevention e.g.

I stop you from doing x,  I delay you from  doing y   and so forth. Note the translation ‘from’, this is how
you will almost always want to render quin or quominus if you come across either word in an unprepared
translation.

The most common verbs which take quin  and/or quominus  are as follows;

verbs of preventing - impedio (I hinder), retineo (I restrain) and deterreo (I deter)

verbs of refraining (only to be used in negative clauses) – mihi tempero (I refrain), recuso  (I

object), dubito (I hesitate)

quin and quominus (sometimes written as two words, quo minus) are always followed by the subjunctive

– present subjunctive in primary sequence, imperfect subjunctive in historic sequence

The difference between the two words is that quin  can only be used with a negative main clause,
whereas quominus  can be used with clauses both negative and positive. N.B. preferably you’ll
use quin  with a negative main clause and quominus with a positive one to indicate that you understand this
difference.

Examples:

tempestas Augustum deterruit quominus Graeciam navigaret

The bad weather discouraged  Augustus from sailing to Greece

 -deterruit – not accompanied by a negative thus   main clause is positive, therefore you should
quominus

- navigaret – deterruit  is perfect tense so we are     in historic sequence. Therefore navigaret  must    

be imperfect subjunctive

M. Antonius numquam sibi temperat quin nimis vini bibat

Mark Anthony never  restrains  himself  from  drinking too much wine

 -numquam – this makes the main clause             negative and so you should use quin
 -bibat   - temperat  is present tense so we are in     primary sequence. Therefore bibat must be   present
subjunctive  

Finally, using quin and quominus accurately will really convey to the examiners a great command of the
language. However, flexibility in prose composition is essential and it’s always handy to have an
alternative just in case you get stuck in an exam.

If you can’t precisely remember how to use these words then you could use the much simpler (but less
impressive!) construction prohibeo (I prevent) +  infinitive, e.g. prohibeo te fugere (I prevent you from
fleeing).