Etymology

puberty

P3U1B3E1R1T1Y4

Today it means: A developmental phase brought about by the action of hormones as part of the maturing process. For humans, there are three in total. Full definition →

Middle English puberte ← Old French puberté ← Latin pūbertās
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Latin · derived frompūbertās“the age of maturity, manhood”
  2. Old French · derived frompuberté
  3. Middle English · inherited frompuberte
  4. English todaypuberty

From Middle English puberte, from Old French puberté, from Latin pūbertās (“the age of maturity, manhood”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.