impubes

Forms

impūbēs (genitive impūberis or impūbis); third-declension one-termination adjective (non-i-stem)^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- (“not”) + pūbēs (“adult; manhood”), “not yet adult”.^[2][1] De Vaan, however, takes pūbēs to be an old s-stem; since s-stem adjectives with this ablaut were compounds in Proto-Indo-European, he assumes that ⟨impūbēs⟩ was the older word and that ⟨pūbēs⟩ was made from it by back-formation.^[3] The further origin of the base is uncertain: Adams connects it with Sanskrit पुमांस् (púmāṃs-, “male, man”).^[3]

Besides the inflection ⟨impūberis⟩ the word has a second one, ⟨impūbis⟩.^[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan's first author is Lucretius,^[3] who uses it as a noun for a boy below the age of puberty.^[2] Köbler lists it as early as the Twelve Tables.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The word described a person who had not yet reached puberty or manhood, and as a noun such a person,^[2] which was also a legal status: a statute forbids an impūbēs to give evidence, and the jurists use the word of minors as a class.^[2] Poets used it for the beardless cheeks or body of a youth, and Ovid has annī impūbēs for the years of childhood.^[2]

L&S notes that the form ⟨impūbis⟩ is the more frequent one but is not used by Cicero or Caesar.^[4] In Ecclesiastical Latin it kept the senses “youthful, beardless, under age”,^[6] and Wiktionary also gives it the sense “chaste”.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 450 BC – Köbler lists the word in the Twelve Tables.^[5]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it as a noun for a boy before puberty.^[2][5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of a youth's beardless cheeks.^[2][5]
• 43 BC–AD 18 – Ovid writes impūbibus annīs, “in the years of childhood”.^[2][5]
• 140–180 AD – The jurist Gaius uses it for minors as a legal class.^[2][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Not yet having reached puberty or manhood, under age.^[2][4]
2. (of the cheeks or body) beardless, youthful.^[2]
3. annī impūbēs: the years of childhood.^[2]
4. (Ecclesiastical Latin) Youthful; chaste.^[6][1]

Noun

1. A boy or girl below the age of puberty;^[2] (law) a minor.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson