pubes

From Latin pubes (“the hair which appears on the body at the age of puberty, the genitals”), from pubes, puber (“grown up, of mature age; of plants, downy, pubescent”); see puberty.

• IPA^(key): /ˈpjuːbiːz/
• Rhymes: -uːbiːz

pubes

1. plural of pubis (“pubic bones”)

pubes pl (plural only)

1. (rare) The pubic hair.
2. The pubic region.

• IPA^(key): /pjuːbz/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːbz

pubes

1. plural of pube

• It is common for even educated people to be familiar with the back-formed sense of pubes and its singular, pube, while being unaware of the original sense, declension, and etymology. Whereas the original sense occurs mostly in medical English rather than lay English, the newer sense is widely encountered in colloquial speech, though avoided in formal-register lay vocabulary. Thus, although pubes in the sense of pubic hair has two equally valid pronunciations, the monosyllabic /pjuːbz/ is usually intended in everyday written communication.

• See also Thesaurus:pubic hair

• puberty
• pubic

• “pubes”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “pubes”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

• EPUBs, epubs

pubes

1. plural of pube (pubic bones)

pubes

1. plural of pube (crab lice)

Possible connection with puer, pūpus, pūsus, putus.

• pūber
• pūbis

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈpuː.beːs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈpuː.bes]

pūbēs (genitive pūberis); third-declension one-termination adjective (non-i-stem)

1. adult, grown-up
2. pubescent
3. ripe
4. downy (of plants)

Third-declension one-termination adjective (non-i-stem).

• pūbertās
• pūbēscō
• impūbēs

• → Catalan: púber
• → Dutch: puber
• → French: pubère
• → Italian: pubere
• → Portuguese: púbere
• → Spanish: púber

From pūbēs (“adult”).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈpuː.beːs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈpuː.bes]

pūbēs f (genitive pūbis); third declension

1. youth
2. youthfulness
3. pubic hair

Third-declension noun (i-stem).

• → French: pubis
• → Italian: pube
• → Portuguese: pube, pubes, púbis

• “pubes1”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “pubes2”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “pubes”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• pubes in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “pubes”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “pubes”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin