pusillus

Proto-Italic *put-sle-los → *pussillos followed by degemination via the so-called "mamilla rule", from Proto-Indo-European *put-lo- (“son”), historically standing in relation to pullus (“young of an animal”) as a diminutive. Latin cognates include pusillus, putillus (“tiny”), pūsus (“boy”), possibly Vulgar Latin *pūtta (“whore”). Further cognate to Faliscan putellio (“little son”, nom.sg.), Oscan puklum (acc.sg.), Paelignian puclois (dat.pl.), Sanskrit पुत्र (putrá, “son, child”), Avestan 𐬞𐬎𐬚𐬭𐬀 (puθra, “child, son”), Lithuanian putýtis (“little bird”), Latvian putns (“bird”), Old Church Slavonic пътица (pŭtica, “bird”). For the correspondence pullus :: pusillus compare paullus :: pauxillus, vēlum :: vēxillum.

Compare pisinnus, pitinnus; see also putus, a ghost word. A connection of the stem *put- with puer is difficult to establish.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /puˈsil.lus/, [pʊˈs̠ɪlːʲʊs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /puˈsil.lus/, [puˈs̬ilːus]

pusillus (feminine pusilla, neuter pusillum); first/second-declension adjective

1. very little, very small, tiny
   1. (contemptuously) puny, petty, insignificant

First/second-declension adjective.

• pusillanimis
• pusillitās
• pusillulus

• “pusillus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “pusillus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• pusillus in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• pusillus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.