prepubescent

English

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *per-

Proto-Indo-European *preh₂-

Proto-Indo-European *-i

Proto-Indo-European *préh₂i?

Proto-Italic *prai

Proto-Italic *prai-

Latin prae-lbor.

Middle English pre-

English pre-

English pubescent

English prepubescent

prepubescent (comparative more prepubescent, superlative most prepubescent)

Before the age at which a person begins puberty.
- 1955 September 15, Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, published August 1958, →OCLC, part 2, page 261:
  The oddly prepubescent curve of her back, her ricey skin, her slow languorous colombine kisses kept me from mischief.
- 2015, Kim Gordon, chapter 25, in Carrie Thornton, editor, Girl in a Band, New York: Dey st., →ISBN, page 153:
  Sister’s cover was a loose collage of images that each band member individually chose. In the downtown art world appropriation was commonplace, which is why we felt this was an acceptable approach. By collecting those images, we believed we were creating something new out of them. Among them was a Richard Avedon photo of a prepubescent girl and an image of Disney’s Magic Kingdom. When Avedon threatened to sue us, followed by Disney’s legal department, we responded by subsequently blacking out the offending images, a reminder forever that we'd been censored by people who had more money to spend on lawyers than we did.

before the age at which a person begins puberty

prepubescent (plural prepubescents)