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.
1adjectivenubileYoung and old enough to marry.
“In old novels, a father with nubile daughters worried about finding them husbands.”
nubile is a quality of marriageable age.
Latin nubilis means marriageable, from nubere, to marry. Nuptial and connubial come from the same marrying.
Proto-Indo-European
*snewbʰ- — to marry, to wed
Latin
nūbilis — marriageable
French
nubile
English, today
nubile
Built from
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