Etymologically
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impudicitia

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Forms

impudīcitia f (genitive impudīcitiae); first declension[1] It is also spelled inpudīcitia.[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin impudīcus (“shameless, unchaste”) + -itia, modelled on its opposite pudīcitia (“chastity”).[2][1][4] impudīcus is the negative of pudīcus (“chaste”).[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler and Lewis & Short date it from Plautus, in the Amphitruo.[5][3]

Semantic evolution

It is sexual impurity or unchastity, in Tacitus, Gellius, the Digest and Tertullian.[2][3] It is often used of homosexual acts: Suetonius uses it so in the lives of Caesar and Augustus.[2][3] The TLL records the plural in the Vulgate and in Rufinus' translation of Origen.[4] Church Latin glosses it immodesty, impurity.[6]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it.[3][5]
  • 98–115 AD – Tacitus uses it.[3][5]
  • c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius of homosexual acts.[3][5]
  • 390–406 AD – the Vulgate has the plural.[4][5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Unchastity, sexual impurity, lewdness, immodesty.[2][3][6][1]
  2. Homosexual acts; pederasty.[2][3][1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e 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 e f g h i Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  5. ^ a b c d e 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