putillus

Forms

putillus (feminine putilla, neuter putillum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin putus + -illus, a diminutive of the noun for a boy.^[2][3][1] De Vaan sees it as built productively to ⟨putus⟩, which goes back to Proto-Italic *puto- (“boy”);^[4] Sabellic continues the related Proto-Indo-European *putlo- (“son”), as does Sanskrit पुत्र (putrá-, “son, child, young of an animal”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has it as a term of endearment in the Asinaria, where a lover is asked to call himself his sweetheart's “little duck” and “tiny sparrow”, passerculum putillum.^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

It is hardly attested beyond Plautus.^[3] Georges and Gaffiot also cite Varro's Menippean satires for it, of a young bird,^[5][6] but there the word is an editor's conjecture, which Scaliger reads as pusillōs.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus calls a lover a “tiny sparrow”.^[3][7]
• 116–27 BC – Varro's Menippean satires may use it of young birds, in a conjectured reading.^[3][5][7]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Very young, tiny; as a term of endearment.^[2][8][1]

Noun

1. A little boy, a little one; of a young bird.^[9][5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f 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 Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
6. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
8. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
9. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press