inglés
WORDS RELATED TO THE STAGES OF LIFE IN ROME
ENGLISH WORD: “infancy”, “infantile”,”infantry”.
CURRENT MEANING: first stage of a person's life since birth to adolescence. In Spain and Portugal the term infant is used as a title and rank of nobility given to the sons and daughters (called infantas) of the king that are not heirs and their children. Infantry troops are those that go on foot and with light weapons.
ORIGIN: both the term infancy and infantile send us to Latin word infans, that etymologically means “who does not speak”. It is formed by the prefix of negation in and the present participle of the verb fari “speak”.The infantry was a troop that protected the infant.
Children playing ball games. Marble. 2nd century. Louvre Museum.
"ADOLESCENT"
ENGLISH WORD: “adolescent”, “adolescence”.
CURRENT MEANING: life stage following childhood, prior to childhood, ranging from age 12 to age 18 approximately.
ORIGIN: it derives from the Latin term adolescens (present participle of the verb adolescere) with the meaning of “who is growing up”, as opposed to adultus, with the meaning of “who already grew up”.