nubile
/ˈnjuːbʌɪl
/adjective
1(Of a girl or woman) sexually attractive: he employed a procession of nubile young secretaries...
- Myself and my friend stood and marvelled at the incredible array of ludicrously attractive nubile women.
- I was perusing the latest issue of one of those male magazines, you know the type - glossy, cover shots of half naked nubile females and banner headlines screaming guarantees of hitherto unpossessed sexual prowess and financial muscle.
- Instead, this production chiefly succeeds by emphasizing the cheerful absurdity of the situation, in which four healthy young men try to resist the call of their glands while four nubile women are literally sitting on their doorstep.
2(Of a girl or young woman) sexually mature; old enough for marriage.And, of course, as someone who has been without working equipment for most of his life, the presence of this nubile young woman causes him much inner pain, as she represents what he has never really known....
- ‘Spot’ had been spirited away by the Panthers with offer of a high-rise kennel and an unlimited supply of nubile young bitches from some of the local hostelries.
- Eager parents of nubile daughters from Patna to Pune, Jammu to Juhu, here's the London boy of your dreams.
Synonyms
sexually mature, marriageable;
sexually attractive, desirable, sexy, luscious, lush, voluptuous, ripe
informal beddable, hot
Derivatives
nubility
/ noun ...- Greer describes infancy and childhood as a woman's first age; her adolescence and nubility as her second, wifedom her third, motherhood her fourth and the end of mothering and the beginning of grandmotherhood as her fifth.
- A film like this generally turns on a ‘brave’ central performance, critical shorthand for any role that bestows sexuality on an actor who has progressed past nubility.
- Maybe that was the target audience of the slasher films: bitter middle-aged men chortling mirthlessly at the sight of dismembered nubility.
Origin
Mid 17th century: from Latin nubilis 'marriageable', from nubere 'cover or veil oneself for a bridegroom' (from nubes 'cloud').
Today a nubile girl is young and sexy, but originally she was simply old enough to marry, with no implication of attractiveness. The word comes from Latin nubilis, from the verb nubere, ‘to put on a veil, get married’. In English nubile at first had the same meaning as in Latin, but this use is now only found in anthropology and other technical contexts. Nubere is also the source of the English word nuptial (Late Middle English), ‘to do with weddings’, and ultimately derives from the Latin word for a cloud (the link is the obscuring veil), nubes, which is the root also of nuance (late 18th century).