pudicitia

Forms

pudīcitia f (genitive pudīcitiae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from pudīcus (“chaste, modest”) with the suffix -itia.^[2][1] ⟨Pudīcus⟩ comes from pudet (“it shames”).^[1][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler gives Plautus as its first author,^[3] who pairs it with pudor in the Amphitruo.^[4]

Semantic evolution

It is sexual purity, chastity and virtue, and also shamefacedness and modesty, as Cicero's “here chastity, there debauchery”.^[2][4] Personified, Pudicitia was worshipped as a goddess, as Propertius' temples of Chastity and Livy's shrine of Patrician Chastity in the Forum Boarium.^[2]

Church Latin glosses it “purity, chastity”.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus paired with pudor.^[4][3]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero opposing it to debauchery.^[4][3]
• 57/46–12 BC – Propertius of the goddess.^[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. Chastity, sexual purity, virtue; modesty.^[2][1][4]
2. (personified) Pudicitia, the goddess of chastity.^[2]

Related words

• pudet
• pudor
• castitās
• verēcundia

Usage notes

Döderlein says that castus is chastity as a natural purity of the soul, while pudīcus and pudīcitia are a moral feeling, bashful and modest.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
6. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper