Etymologically
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pauculus

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Forms

pauculus (feminine paucula, neuter pauculum); first/second-declension adjective[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin paucus (“few”) + -ulus, a diminutive.[1][2][3] De Vaan traces paucus to Proto-Italic *pauko- (“few”) and Proto-Indo-European *peh₂u-, the root of parvus (“small”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL reads it from Plautus, Cato and Terence on.[5] In the Truculentus a speaker promises to make someone admit within a very few days that he is a tough man.[1]

Semantic evolution

It is usually plural and means very few, only a small number, as in Plautus,[1] or a few: Plautus has verbīs pauculīs, "in a few words", Cato speaks of a very few friends, and Terence has someone say a few things.[1][2] In the singular it means a little, not very much: Apuleius has post pauculum tempus, "after a short while".[1] Lewis & Short call it mostly ante- and post-classical.[2] The glosses explain it as paucissimus, "very few".[5]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a few days and a few words.[1][5]
  • 234–149 BC – Cato of a very few friends.[2][5]
  • 190–159 BC – Terence.[2][5]
  • c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius of a short while.[1]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. (plural) Very few, only a few; a few.[1][2]
  2. (singular) Very little, not much.[1][2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  3. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  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 Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften