Etymologically
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impubes

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ɪmˈpuː.beːs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [imˈpuː.bes][1]

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