pubesco

Forms

pūbēscō (present infinitive pūbēscere, perfect active pūbuī); third conjugation, no passive, no supine stem^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin pūbēs (“adulthood; the adult population”) + -ēscō.^[2][1][3] For the noun, de Vaan thinks the compound impūbēs (“not adult”) is the older form, from which it was back-formed, and reports Adams's proposal to connect it with Sanskrit पुमांस् (púmāṃs-, “male, man”), deriving both from a root Proto-Indo-European *pum- (“pubic hair”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and the OLD record it first in Ennius (204–169 BC), of vines that ripen with their tendrils.^[4][2][5]

Semantic evolution

Of people it means to reach puberty, to grow to manhood: Cicero uses it of Hercules when he first reached that age, and Livy speaks of the flower of the young men coming of age.^[2][6] Lucretius uses it of the boy growing soft down and a beard, and Pliny the Elder says that among animals man alone grows hair at puberty.^[2] The jurist Gaius uses it of those who cannot reach puberty, such as eunuchs.^[2] Of plants and fruit it means to ripen or come to maturity: Cicero has the sun making everything flourish and ripen, Virgil a vineyard ripening with rich fruit, and Ovid meadows covered with flowers.^[2][6] Claudian has the phoenix growing young again through death.^[7] The compound repūbēscō means to grow young again.^[1]

Timeline

• 204–169 BC – Ennius uses it of ripening vines.^[2][5]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it of growing hair at puberty.^[2][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of reaching manhood and of plants ripening.^[2][5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of a ripening vineyard.^[2][5]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of ripening grapes.^[2][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To reach puberty, grow to manhood.^[2][8]
2. To grow hair on the body or a beard at puberty.^[2]
3. (of fruit, plants) To come to maturity, ripen; to be covered (with flowers).^[2][6]

Word family

• repūbescō

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b 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 f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press