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nubile

UK/ˈnjuːbaɪl/US/ˈnubaɪl/
adjectiveC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,095 of 15,258leans spoken

Nubile means young and old enough to marry, said of a woman. A nubile daughter, of nubile age, nubile young women.

The Latin means simply marriageable, and that was the whole sense until the twentieth century, when it drifted towards meaning sexually attractive — which is why the word now sounds leering and is largely avoided. It has never been used of men. Note nuptial, from the same root about marrying.

Definitions of nubile

  1. 1adjectivenubileYoung and old enough to marry.C2

    “In old novels, a father with nubile daughters worried about finding them husbands.”

nubile is a quality of marriageable age.

Where it comes from

Latin nubilis means marriageable, from nubere, to marry. Nuptial and connubial come from the same marrying.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *snewbʰ- — to marry, to wed

  2. Latin

    nūbilis — marriageable

  3. French

    nubile

  4. English, today

    nubile

Built from

  • nūbō · Latin — marry, to take as husband

From French nubile, from Latin nūbilis (“marriageable”), from nūbō (“marry, to take as husband”), from Proto-Indo-European snewbʰ- (“to marry, to wed”). Possibly cognate with Ancient Greek νύμφη (“bride, young wife, nymph”) (English nymph), but this is disputed.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

nubile in the wild

  • Virile has become obsolete in referring to a "nubile" young woman, or "a maid that is Marriageable or ripe for a Husband, or Virill".

    Virility

  • Having produced his first opera in 1800, his first success came with Pamela nubile, followed by other farsa, such as Adelina in 1810.

    Pietro Generali

  • William Claude Jones was an American politician, poet, fabulist, and "pursuer of nubile females," including several teen brides.

    W. Claude Jones

  • Many of his paintings depict seductive nubile women.

    Natale Schiavoni

  • With regards to the girl, my daughter, about who you wrote to me in view of marriage, she has become a woman; she is nubile.

    Amarna letter EA 3

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the nūbō family

nubilenuptial

nubile — used about once every 18,318 pages · #13,095 · point at the bar for the others