pudicitia
This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 19 October 2026 at 00:29. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Pronunciation
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
- Chastity, sexual purity, virtue; modesty.[2][1][4]
- (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
- ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c d e f Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
- ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
- ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper