premature

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin praemātūrus (“very early, too early; ripe before the proper season”),^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} formed from prae- (“before”) and mātūrus (“ripe, timely”),^[2][3][5][6] the source of mature.^[3][6] The American Heritage Dictionary gives the Middle English adjective the sense "ripe",^[8] and Barnhart thinks that some later uses may have been formed afresh in English from pre- and mature.^[4] Etymonline traces the Latin adjective to Proto-Indo-European *meh-tu- (“ripeness”).^[3] Johnson (1755) compared French prématuré.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Ripe or mature, especially before the proper season: the first record is in a Middle English translation of Palladius on husbandry (?1440), a sense the OED marks as rare and obsolete after 1656.^[2][7][4]

Semantic evolution

The modern sense, "happening or done before the usual or proper time; too early, overhasty", is recorded from about 1530,^[2] in the 1520s according to Etymonline and Dictionary.com,^[3][10] and in the early 16th century according to the Shorter Oxford and Collins.^[11][12] Johnson (1755) defined it as "ripe too soon; formed before the time; too early; too soon said, believed, or done; too hasty".^[9] The medical sense, of a labour or birth before full term and of a baby born before full term, appears in 1754 in Smellie's treatise on midwifery; in recent use it means born before 37 weeks of gestation.^[2] Collins defines a premature baby by a birth weight below 2500 grams.^[12] The phrase premature ejaculation is attested from 1848, and its Latin counterpart, ejaculatio praecox, from 1891 in English.^[3] Military slang of the late 19th century turned the adjective into a noun for a shell or other explosive that went off too soon (1882), and in 1914 into a verb for such a shell exploding early;^[2][11] a premature baby has been called a premature since 1900,^[2] and the American shortening preemie dates from 1927.^[3][2]

Timeline

• ?1440 – ripe, mature (obsolete).^[2][7]
• c. 1530 – occurring or done before the proper time; too early, overhasty.^[2][3]
• 1754 – of a birth or a baby, before full term.^[2]
• 1754 – adverb, prematurely (chiefly poetic).^[2]
• 1848 – premature ejaculation.^[3]
• 1882 – noun, a shell or explosive that detonates too early.^[2]
• 1900 – noun, a premature baby.^[2]
• 1914 – verb, of a shell, to explode before the proper time.^[2][11]
• 1927 – preemie, a premature baby.^[3][2]

Modern meaning

Adjective

1. Happening, arriving or done before the usual or proper time; too early: His premature death shocked the village.
2. Done too soon, without enough thought; hasty: a premature announcement.
3. Of a baby, born before the full period of gestation, in recent use before 37 weeks.
4. (obsolete) Ripe before the proper time.

Noun

1. A baby born prematurely.
2. (historical) A shell that bursts before the intended time.

Verb

1. (military) Of a shell or torpedo, to explode too early.

Word family

• prematurely
• prematureness
• prematurity
• preemie
• unpremature
• premature ejaculation

Related words

• mature
• maturity
• pre-

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins