Etymologically
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pusillus

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [pʊˈsɪl.lʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [puˈs̬il.lus][1]

Forms

pusillus (feminine pusilla, neuter pusillum); first/second-declension adjective[1] The grammarian Scaurus attests the spelling with -ll-.[2] The OLD records a comparative pusillior.[3]

Etymology

It is a diminutive, probably of pullus (“young of an animal”) according to the OLD, of pūsus (“little boy”) according to Lewis and Short and the TLL.[3][4][2][5] Wiktionary reconstructs Proto-Italic *put-sle-los, with ⟨*pussillos⟩ reduced to a single ⟨s⟩, from Proto-Indo-European *put-lo- (“son”), the source also of ⟨pullus⟩.[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler's first source is Plautus,[5] in whom a tiny mouse appears.[3] Cato has it of small boys.[4]

Semantic evolution

It is “very small, tiny”, of size, and in the neuter a tiny amount: Cicero has a tiny bit of space, and calls his villa at Cumae “a sort of miniature Rome”.[3][4] Horace says the gods made him of small spirit and few words.[3] It is then “petty, insignificant”, as Catullus' petty back-street adulterers, and of character “mean, small-minded”: Cicero calls it the act of a petty and spiteful mind not to give a king his title.[3]

Church Latin glosses it “little, small, tiny, puny”, and as a neuter noun a trifling matter.[6]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a tiny mouse.[3][5]
  • 234–149 BC – Cato of small boys.[4][5]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of a tiny place and a petty mind.[3][5]
  • 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus of petty adulterers.[3][5]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Very small, tiny;[3][4][1][6] (neuter as noun) a tiny amount.[3][4][1][6]
  2. Petty, trifling, insignificant.[3][1]
  3. Of character, petty, mean, small-minded.[3]

Word family

  • perpusillus
  • pusillanimis
  • pusillitās
  • pusillulus

Usage notes

Döderlein distinguishes parvus and minūtus, which denote littleness without any further notion, from exiguus and pusillus, which add contempt: exiguus pitiable and paltry, pusillus ludicrously petty.[7]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  6. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  7. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper