Etymologically
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impudentia

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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]

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