Etymologically
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puerpera

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [puˈɛr.pɛ.ra][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [puˈɛr.pe.ra][1]

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]

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