suboles

Forms

subolēs f (genitive subolis); third declension^[1] It is also spelled soboles.^[2][3][1]

Etymology

It is sub- (“from below”) with a noun ⟨*olēs⟩ growth, from the root of alō (“to nourish”), as in prōlēs (“offspring”) and indolēs (“nature”).^[2][1] Festus derived it from olēscō (“to grow”), as in adulēscēns (“young man”).^[3] De Vaan traces alō to Proto-Italic *ale/o- (“to feed”) and Proto-Indo-European *h₂el-e/o-.^[4] Cognate with Old Irish no-t·ail (“feeds, raises”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's first example is in Plautus' Pseudolus: “look at that young imp!”^[2] Köbler dates it from Virgil.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Cicero cites it as an archaic word.^[2] Of plants it is a shoot or sucker, as Columella's shoots that creep from the sides and roots, and the fruit of a gourd;^[2][3] Lewis & Short call this sense very rare.^[2][3] Usually it is an offspring or child, and collectively one's children, posterity or race, as Cicero's “offspring of the Titans” in a translation of Aeschylus; it is also the rising generation, new blood, as in a letter to Cicero of the strength and young blood of an army lost.^[2] Livy uses it of a generation, and Virgil of a breed of bees.^[2] Döderlein groups it with prōlēs and prōgeniēs as words for descendants, against stirps and genus for ancestors.^[6] Church Latin glosses it offshoot, offspring, progeny.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a young imp.^[2][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of the offspring of the Titans.^[2][5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of a breed of bees.^[2][5]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of a new generation.^[2][5]
• 1st century AD – Columella of shoots.^[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A shoot, sucker, offshoot; fruit.^[2][3][1]
2. An offspring, child; collectively, children, progeny, posterity; the rising generation.^[2][3][7][1]
3. A generation; a race, breed.^[2]

Related words

• prōlēs
• alō
• adolēscō

References

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