pauperus

From morphological reanalysis of pauper, originally a third-declension one-termination adjective. Probably inflected initially as pauper, paupera, pauperum, after the model of Classical Latin adjectives such as miser, misera, miserum. The change in declension would be facilitated by the ambiguous masculine nominative singular form. Then the oblique forms would in turn provide the analogical basis for a new masculine nominative singular pauperus: however, this form is unattested in ancient Latin and occurs rarely even in medieval times. In contrast, some of the oblique forms are attested early on, such as pauperōrum in the Satyricon of Petronius (dated to the first century AD).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈpau̯.pɛ.rʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈpaːu̯.pe.rus]
• Hyphenation: pau‧pe‧rus

pauperus (feminine paupera, neuter pauperum); first/second-declension adjective

1. (rare, Medieval Latin, New Latin) alternative form of pauper
   • c. 27 CE – 66 CE, Petronius, Satyricon XLVI.:

     Nōn es nostrae fasciae, et ideō pauperōrum verba dērīdēs. Scīmus tē prae litterās fatuum esse.

     • 1922 translation by W[illiam]. C[harles]. Firebaugh

       You don’t belong to our bunch, so you laugh in your sleeve at the way us poor people talk, but we know that you’re only a fool with a lot of learning.

       (literally, “It is not our territory, and therefore you mock the words of the poor. We know you to be a fool on account of letters.”)

• As a convention, some dictionaries of Latin such as Gaffiot place all second/first-declension variant forms of this adjective under the headword pauperus; however, forms such as pauperōrum and paupera can equally go with nominative masculine singular pauper. Compare ācrus.

First/second-declension adjective.

• “pauperus”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.