nubile

[noo-bil, -bahyl, nyoo-]

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR nubile ON THESAURUS.COM

adjective

(of a young woman) suitable for marriage, especially in regard to age or physical development; marriageable.

(of a young person, usually a woman) sexually developed and attractive: the nubile girls in their bikinis.

Origin of nubile

1635–45; < Latin nūbilis, equivalent to nūb(ere) to marry (see nuptial) + -ilis -ile

Related formsnu·bil·i·ty

[noo-bil-i-tee, nyoo-] /nuˈbɪl ɪ ti, nyu-/, noun

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for nubile

espousal, nuptial, spousal, hymeneal, conjugal, connubial, marital, matrimonial, epithalamic, adult, full-blown, grown, grown-up, marriageable, mature, perfected, prime

Examples from the Web for nubile

Historical Examples of nubile

I got a picture of a nubile waif, too freakish to fit where she'd been raised.
Vigorish
Gordon Randall Garrett
All women of that category are Nupa, or nubile, as far as this man goes.
Social Origins and Primal Law
Andrew Lang
Every nubile maid (koshimoto) in the yashiki was a candidate for concubinage.
The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari
James S. De Benneville
Such was the ideal of wifely purity in an isle where nubile virgins went naked as in paradise.
In the South Seas
Robert Louis Stevenson
But shall we find in France a country where the proportion of births to the number of nubile women is greater than in our own?
The Education of American Girls
Anna Callender Brackett

British Dictionary definitions for nubile

nubile

adjective (of a girl or woman)

ready or suitable for marriage by virtue of age or maturity

sexually attractive

Derived Formsnubility (njuːˈbɪlɪtɪ), noun

Word Origin for nubile

C17: from Latin nūbilis, from nūbere to marry

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for nubile

adj.

1640s, "marriageable" (said of a woman), from French nubile (16c.) or directly from Latin nubilis "marriageable," from stem of nubere "take as husband" (see nuptial). In sense of "young and sexually attractive" from 1973. Related: Nubility.