LOGOI

The corpus record — Latin

puer

puer

boy

Generated live from the audited Latin corpus — every figure on this page is a database query, not prose from memory.

Where it lives

Densest 12 of 269 attested works shown, by occurrences per 10,000 attested tokens.

What it meant

1. puer — de Vaan

puer 'boy' [m. o] (Andr.H-; alsopuerus PL, Caecil.) Derivatives: puera 'girl' (Andr.+), puerculus 'little son' (P1.+), puenlis 'of a boy/child' (PL+), puenlitas 'childhood' (Varro+), pueriiia 'boyhood' (Ter.+), puella 'girl, young woman' (P1.+), puellula 'girl' (Ter.+), puellascere cto become girlish' (Varro), puellitani cto act like a girl' (Lab.), puellus 'young boy' (PL+); repuerascere 'to become a boy again' (PL … — [de Vaan, s.v. puer, p. 510]

2. pŭer — Lewis & Short

pŭer, ĕri (old

voc. puere, Plaut. As. 2, 3, 2; 5, 2, 42; id. Most. 4, 2, 32 et saep.; Caecil. and Afran. ap. Prisc. p. 697 P.;
I gen. plur. puerūm, Plaut. Truc. 4, 2, 50), m. (v. infra) [root pu-, to beget; v. pudes; and cf. pupa, putus], orig. a child, whether boy or girl: pueri appellatione etiam puella significatur, Dig. 50, 16, 163.—Thus, as fem.: sancta puer Saturni filia, regina, Liv. And. ap. Prisc. p. 697 P.: prima incedit Cereris Proserpina puer, i.e. daughter of Ceres, Naev. ib. p. 697 P.: mea puer, mea puer, Poët. ap. Charis. p. 64 P.; Ael. Stil. and As. ib. p. 64 P.—Hence, freq. in the plur. pueri, children, in gen., Plaut. Poen. prol. 28; 30: infantium puerorum incunabula, Cic. Rosc. Am. 53, 153: cinis eorum pueros tarde dentientes adjuvat cum melle, Plin. 30, 3, 8, § 22; Hor. Ep. 1, 7, 7; id. C. 4, 9, 24.—
II In partic.
1 A male child, a boy, lad, young man (strictly till the seventeenth year, but freq. applied to those who are much older): puero isti date mammam, Plaut. Truc. 2, 5, 1: aliquam puero nutricem para, Ter. Hec. 4, 4, 104; 5, 2, 4: homini ilico lacrimae cadunt Quasi puero, id. Ad. 4, 1, 21: quo portas puerum? id. And. 4, 3, 7: nescire quid antea quam natus sis, acciderit, id est semper esse puerum, Cic. Or. 34, 120; Ov. P. 4, 12, 20: laudator temporis acti Se puero, when he was a boy, Hor. A. P. 173; cf.: foeminae praetextatique pueri et puellae, Suet. Claud. 35.—A puero, and with plur. verb, a pueris (cf. Gr. e)k paido/s, e)k pai/dwn), from a boy, boyhood, or childhood (cf. ab): doctum hominem cognovi, idque a puero, Cic. Fam. 13, 16, 4; id. Ac. 2, 3, 8: diligentiā matris a puero doctus, id. Brut. 27, 104; Hor S. 1, 4, 97: ad eas artes, quibus a pueris dediti fuimus, Cic. de Or. 1, 1, 2.—In like manner: ut primum ex pueris excessit Archias, as soon as he ceased to be a child, Cic. Arch. 3, 4.—
2 A grown-up youth, young man, Cic. Fam. 2, 1, 2: puer egregius praesidium sibi primum et nobis, deinde summae rei publicae comparavit, of Octavian at the age of nineteen, id. ib. 12, 25, 4 (cf. Vell. 2, 61, 1; Tac. A. 13, 6); cf. of the same: nomen clarissimi adulescentis vel pueri potius, Cic. Phil. 4, 1, 3; of Scipio Africanus, at the age of twenty, Sil. 15, 33; 44 (coupled with juvenis, id. 15, 10 and 18); of Pallas, in military command, Verg. A. 11, 42.—
3 An unmarried man, a bachelor, Ov. F. 4, 226.—
4 As a pet name, or in familiar address, boy, fellow, Cat. 12, 9; Ter. Ad. 5, 8, 17.—
B Transf.
1 A little son, a son (poet.), Plaut. Am. 5, 1, 72: Ascanius puer, Verg. A. 2, 598: tuque (Venus) puerque tuus (Cupido), id. ib. 4, 94; cf. Hor. C. 1, 32, 10: Latonae puer, id. ib. 4, 6, 37: Semeles puer, id. ib. 1, 19, 2: deorum pueri, id. A. P. 83; 185.—
2 A boy for attendance, a servant, slave: cedo aquam manibus, puer, Plaut. Most. 1, 3, 150; Cic. Rosc. Am. 28, 77: Persicos odi, puer, apparatus, Hor. C. 1, 38, 1; 2, 11, 18; 4, 11, 10: hic vivum mihi cespitem ponite, pueri, id. ib. 1, 19, 14: cena ministratur pueris tribus, id. S. 1, 6, 116: tum pueri nautis, pueris convicia nautae Ingerere, id. ib. 1, 5, 11: regii, royal pages, Liv. 45, 6; Curt. 5, 2, 13: litteratissimi, Nep. Att. 13, 3; Juv. 11, 59; Dig. 50, 16, 204.—*
3 As adj., youthful: puera facies, Paul. Nol. Carm. 25, 217.

3. puer — Walde–Hofmann

puer, -i m. f. (inschr. povero) „Knabe, Müdchen* (seit Lex reg. und Liv. Andr., puera f. „Mädchen“ seit Liv. Andr. ; opp. liberi , Kinder* in Hinsicht auf die Eltern; doch dicht. auch puer als Sg. zu beri Verg. Aen. 4 94 und CIL. XIV Fortünae Iovis puerö; zur Konkurrenz von filiws und puer s. Stolz-Schmalz* 29; puerculus „Knäblein“ seit Arnob., rom., puerulus ds. seit Cic., puerinus [Hercules] Dessau 3430 [vgl. auch … — [Walde–Hofmann, s.v. puer, p. 1288]

In the wild

6 of 2,673 attestations shown.

Where it came from

  • de Vaan, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Brill 2008) Treated in de Vaan, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Brill 2008) s.v. puer (scan p. 510; entry #1414). Root candidates: *pawero-.
  • Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine Treated in Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine s.v. puer (scan p. 567; entry #9311).
  • Walde-Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches Worterbuch Treated in Walde-Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches Worterbuch s.v. puer (scan pp. 1288-1289; entry #2169).

Latin text and lemmatization derived from the Perseus Digital Library (canonical-latinLit), CC BY-SA 4.0. Lewis & Short (public domain) via Perseus. This derived data is shared under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 license.