impudentia

Forms

impudentia f (genitive impudentiae); first declension^[1] It is also spelled inpudentia.^[2]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin impudēns (“shameless”) + -ia.^[2][1][3] The adjective is ⟨in-⟩ “not” with the participle of pudeō (“to be ashamed”), which de Vaan traces to Proto-Italic *pud-ē- (“to be ashamed or shy”); the further origin of the root is unclear.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it first in Ennius and Plautus.^[3] In an Ennius tragedy quoted by Cicero someone asks who in the world ever outdid a man in impudentia.^[5]

Semantic evolution

It is shamelessness, effrontery, impudence: Cato speaks of a man whose impudence and hardness he knew.^[2][5] In the Priapea it is shamelessness in sexual conduct.^[2] Lewis and Short call it classical.^[5]

Church Latin glosses it “shamelessness”.^[6]

Timeline

• 204–169 BC – Ennius in a tragedy.^[3][5][7]
• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus.^[3][7]
• 234–149 BC – Cato of a man's impudence.^[5][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. Shamelessness, effrontery, impudence.^[2][1][6]
2. Sexual immodesty.^[2]

Related words

• impudēns
• pudeō
• pudor
• impudīcus

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de