puerpera

Forms

puerpera f (genitive puerperae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is the feminine of an adjective puerperus (“bearing children”) used as a noun,^[2][1] from Latin puer (“boy, child”) + pariō (“to give birth”).^[3][2]

Ancient scholars explained the name in several ways: the jurist Paulus says that the word for boy covers girls as well, so that women recently delivered bear this name;^[2] Priscian says it is a woman who bears a boy or a girl;^[2] Isidore of Seville offers both that women are weighed down by a first birth and that they give birth in their youthful years.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler records it first in Plautus,^[4] who uses it in the Amphitryon;^[5] Georges notes that Plautus and Catullus use it of a woman in labour.^[6]

Semantic evolution

It is a woman who has just given birth, or one in the course of delivery: Terence uses it of a woman in childbed, and Plautus and Catullus of one in labour.^[6][3] According to the TLL, it occurs in verse from Plautus on and in prose from Seneca the Elder.^[2] Seneca the Younger uses it attributively, uxor puerpera, and Pliny the Elder uses it too.^[6][5]

In Christian and Medieval Latin it also meant a mother,^[7] and the sacra puerpera was the Virgin Mary.^[8] Aldhelm gives one of his riddles the title of a woman who has given birth to twins.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of a woman in labour.^[6][4]
• 190–159 BC – Terence uses it of a woman in childbed.^[6]
• 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus uses it of women in labour.^[6][5]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it attributively, uxor puerpera.^[6]
• 639–709 AD – Aldhelm uses it in the title of a riddle.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A woman who has just been delivered of a child, a woman in childbed.^[3][6]
2. A woman in labour.^[3][6]
3. (Ecclesiastical Latin) A mother;^[7][8] sacra puerpera, the Virgin Mary.^[7][8]

Related words

• puerperium
• puer
• pariō

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b c d e Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press