Etymologically
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puerilis

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [pu.ɛˈriː.lɪs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [pu.eˈriː.lis][1]

Forms

puerīlis (neuter puerīle, comparative puerīlior, superlative puerīlissimus, adverb puerīliter); third-declension two-termination adjective[1] The OLD notes the comparative puerīlior in Horace.[2] A spelling with pur- is also recorded.[3]

Etymology

It is from Latin puer (“boy, child”) + -īlis.[2][1][3] De Vaan lists it under ⟨puer⟩, which he derives from Proto-Italic *puwero-, perhaps Proto-Indo-European *ph₂u-ero- (“smaller”); since that form would rather have given ⟨*pawero-⟩, he suggests ⟨puer⟩ may have been built later to the Italic root for “small, young”, or to the stem of pūbēs.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus,[4][5] who speaks of reproaching a grown man with “boyish deeds”.[2]

Semantic evolution

It is first “of a boy or child”: Cicero has a boyish look with an old man's wisdom, and aetās puerīlis is childhood.[2][6] The pejorative “childish, immature” starts with Terence, whose character asks why he is being fooled “with your childish notion”.[2] Cicero and later writers use it of silly or trifling things.[2]

Church Latin glosses it “childish”.[7] English puerile (1660s) comes from it or from French puéril; the sense “merely juvenile, immature” is from the 1680s.[8]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of boyish deeds.[2][5]
  • 190–159 BC – Terence in the sense “childish”.[2][5]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of boyhood and of childish things.[2][6][5]
  • 1660s – English puerile.[8]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Of or belonging to a boy or child, boyish, youthful.[2][6][1]
  2. (pejorative) childish, puerile, immature.[2][1][7]

Word family

  • puerīlitās

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  6. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com