pubes

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin pūbēs (“pubic hair, groin, private parts; the age of puberty”),^[2][3][4][5] related to pūber (“grown up, adult”).^[2][6][1] The OED calls the further etymology uncertain.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The region just above the external genitals, which becomes hairy at puberty: 1565, in J. Hall's translation of Lanfranc.^[2][6] Etymonline dates the word to the 1560s.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Both main English senses go back to the Latin noun, which meant the hair and the part of the body as well as the age when they develop.^[2] English first took the region (1565) and then the hair (1569),^[2] which Barnhart dates to about 1570.^[8] A use for puberty itself, in 1637, was rare and did not last.^[2] From 1713 the word also served for the pubic bone,^[2] which Barnhart finds later, in 1872 and in a plural sense in 1841;^[8] it is also the plural of pubis.^[3][9] Botany and zoology borrowed it for a covering of down, pubescence.^[2] The OED now marks the sense "pubic hair" as rare and the Shorter Oxford as colloquial.^[2][5] In modern slang the word is a monosyllable, a familiar shortening of "pubic hairs".^[7][9] Green's Dictionary of Slang quotes it from 1958, with the variant pubies from 1967–8.^[10]

Timeline

• 1565 – the pubic region.^[2][6]
• 1569 – pubic hair.^[2]
• 1637 – puberty (obsolete, rare).^[2]
• 1713 – in anatomy and zoology, the pubic bone.^[2]
• 1772 – in botany, downy covering (obsolete by 1797).^[2]
• 1909 – in zoology, downy covering.^[2]
• 1958 – slang, the pubic hair, in Southern and Hoffenberg's Candy.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. The lower front part of the abdomen, the region around the external genitals, which grows hair from puberty.^[3][6][9][2]
2. The hair that grows on this region.^[3][6][2]
3. (vulgar, slang) Pubic hair, as a plural pronounced in one syllable; in the singular, pube, one pubic hair.^[9][10]
4. The plural of pubis; also, in anatomy, the pubic bones.^[3][9][2]
5. (zoology, rare) A downy covering, pubescence.^[2]

Related words

• puberty
• pubic
• pubis
• pubescent

Usage notes

As a Latin-derived anatomical term the word has two syllables, /ˈpjuːbiːz/; the slang plural for pubic hair has one, /pjuːbz/.^[9][5]

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 q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com