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Puberty   /pjˈubərti/   Listen
Puberty

noun
1.
The time of life when sex glands become functional.  Synonym: pubescence.






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"Puberty" Quotes from Famous Books



... the house; for she was scented with essences and reek of aromatic woods, and her face shone like a circle of the moon on the fourteenth night. She began to sport with me, and I with her. Now I had just reached the age of puberty; so my prickle stood at point, as it were a huge key. Then she threw me on my back and, mounting astraddle on my breast, fell a wriggling and a bucking upon me till she had uncovered my yard. When she saw it standing with head erect, she hent ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... of Girls at Puberty in Africa, pp. 22-32.—Girls at puberty forbidden to touch the ground and see the sun, 22; seclusion of girls at puberty among the Zulus and kindred tribes, 22; among the A-Kamba of British East Africa, 23; among the Baganda of Central Africa, 23 sq.; among the tribes of the Tanganyika ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... N. youth; juvenility, juvenescence[obs3]; juniority[obs3]; infancy; babyhood, childhood, boyhood, girlhood, youthhood[obs3]; incunabula; minority, nonage, teens, tender age, bloom. cradle, nursery, leading strings, pupilage, puberty, pucelage[obs3]. prime of life, flower of life, springtide of life[obs3], seedtime of life, golden season of life; heyday of youth, school days; rising generation. Adj. young, youthful, juvenile, green, callow, budding, sappy, puisne, beardless, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... parents who contract their daughters at an early age to the parents of some boy, and the children are regarded as man and wife, though of course each remains with the parents until the age of puberty is reached. Whether or not the whole payment is made in the beginning or only enough is paid to bind the bargain, I do not know, but I do know that cases of this kind may be met with frequently among the Negritos of Pinatubo, who give as an excuse ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed

... life of the boy or girl, the possibilities for stuttering or stammering to secure a firm hold on their muscular and nervous system are very great. Next to the age of second dentition, children at the age of puberty are most susceptible to ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue

... hysterical symptoms do not appear. Thereafter they may be occasionally met with, with increasing frequency. At first, in the earlier years of childhood, there is no preponderance in the female sex. As puberty approaches, ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron

... be here observed in favour of bathing, that some fish are believed to continue to a great age, and continually to enlarge in size, as they advance in life; and that long after their state of puberty. I have seen perch full of spawn, which were less than two inches long; and it is known, that they will grow to six or eight times that size; it is said, that the whales, which have been caught of late years, are much less in size than those, which were caught, when first the whale-fishery ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin

... states that it "is a very ancient custom among the Philippine indios, and so generalized that at least seventy or eighty per cent of males in the Tagal country have undergone the operation." Those uncircumcised at the age of puberty are taunted by their fellows, and such are called "suput," a word formerly meaning "constricted" or "tight," but now being extended to mean "one who cannot easily gain entrance in sexual intercourse." The "operation ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair

... strict rules and allowed their young men to dress their hair and ornament their shields and costumes, taking a pride in them such as one does in high-mettled horses. For this reason, although they all let their hair grow long after the age of puberty, yet it was especially in time of danger that they took pains to have it smooth and evenly parted, remembering a saying of Lykurgus about the hair, that it made a well-looking man look handsomer, and an ugly ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... generally speaking the native women seldom have more than four children, or if they have, few above that number arrive at the age of puberty. There are, however, several reasons why the women are not more prolific; the principal of which is that they suckle their young for such a length of time, and so severe a task is it with them to rear their offspring that the child is frequently destroyed at its birth; and however revolting ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt

... occurred in the case of a young man, the son of an opulent family. He had arrived at puberty, but from the early age of ten had been accustomed to indulge in indecent familiarities with young girls, who had gratified him by lascivious manipulations; the consequence was an entire loss of the erectile power. Travelling being recommended, he proceeded ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport

... control of the activities of other parts, stimulating or depressing or altering their function. Two of these glands, the thymus, lying in front, where the neck joins the body and which attains its greatest size at puberty, and the pituitary body, placed beneath the brain but forming no part of it, have been shown by recent investigations to have a very definite relation to growth, especially the growth of the skeleton. The growth energy chiefly ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman

... merit consists in this, that it is struggling, fumbling, to say something: that is, to make something. It is not, like modern Jargon, trying to dodge something. English prose, in short, just here is passing through a period of puberty, of green sickness: and, looking at it historically, we may own that its throes are commensurate with the stature of the grown man ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... remains at school for a year or two at least under strict discipline. At Rome it meant, on the contrary, that he was "of age," and in the eye of the law a man, capable of looking after his own education and of holding property. This was a survival from the time when at the age of puberty the boy, as among all primitive peoples, was solemnly received into the body of citizens and warriors; and the solemnity of the Roman ceremony fully attests this. After a sacrifice in the house, and the dedication of his boyish toga and bulla to the Lar familiaris, he was invested ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler

... wondered why some of those writing fellows don't try their hands at drawing the inner life of a young man from about the age of puberty until he begins to find his feet a little. Men are very fond of analysing the feelings of their heroines, which they cannot possibly know anything about, while they have little to say of the inner development of their heroes, which is ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro

... The Gambler. Grushenka in The Brothers Karamazov is another woman of the demoniac type to which Nastasia belongs. Then there are high-spirited, hysterical girls such as Katarina in Karamazov, Aglaia Epanchin in The Idiot, or Liza in The Possessed (Besi). The border-land of puberty is a favourite theme with the Russian writer. And consider the splendidly fierce old women, mothers, aunts, grandmothers (Granny in The Gambler is a full-length portrait worthy of Hogarth) and befuddled old men—retired from service in state and army; Dostoievsky is a masterly painter of drunkards, ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... with palm-oil, they are next reconducted to their home in the gree-gree bush. Here, under strict watch, they are maintained by their relatives or those who are in treaty for them as wives, until they reach the age of puberty. At this epoch the important fact is announced by the gree-gree woman to the purchaser or future husband, who, it is expected, will soon prepare to take her from the retreat. Whenever his new house is ready for the bride's reception, it is proclaimed by ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... to shipwrecked sailors who expose the glans. Almost all the known Australian tribes circumcise after some fashion: Bennett supposes the rite to have been borrowed from the Malays, while Gason enumerates the "Kurrawellie wonkauna among the five mutilations of puberty. Leichhardt found circumcision about the Gulf of Carpentaria and in the river-valleys of the Robinson and Macarthur: others observed it on the Southern Coast a nd among the savages of Perth, where it is noticed by Salvado. James Dawson ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... dispensation for a marriage with a deceased brother's wife was granted by Julius II. (December 1503), and according to the agreement between the courts of England and of Spain, the marriage should have taken place as soon as Henry reached the age of puberty; but owing to certain political changes in Spain, and the prospect of securing a better match for the heir presumptive to the English throne, Henry VII. arranged that Prince Henry should appear before Fox, Bishop of Winchester, and lodge a formal ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... the kind was observed in the natives of the islands in Torres' Strait, nor at Keppel, Hervey's, or Glass-house Bays, on the East Coast; yet at Port Jackson, further south, it is the custom for the boys, on arriving at the age of puberty, to have one of the upper front teeth knocked out, but no more; nor are the girls subjected to the same operation. At Twofold Bay, still further south, no such custom prevails, nor did I observe it at Port Phillip or King George's Sound, on the South Coast; ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders

... where, as through all Polynesia, the girls have their fling at promiscuity from puberty to the late teens or early twenties, when an immense and increasing population compelled the thinking men to devise a remedy for the starvation which in times of drought or comparative failure of the feis or breadfruit or a scarcity of fish ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... itself, and experience acts the part of a nurse. As they advance in life, the girls are taught to spin cotton, and to beat corn, and are instructed in other domestic duties; and the boys are employed in the labours of the field. Both sexes, whether Bushreens or Kafirs, on attaining the age of puberty, are circumcised. This painful operation is not considered by the Kafirs so much in the light of a religious ceremony, as a matter of convenience and utility. They have, indeed, a superstitious notion that it contributes to render the marriage ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... the support of his squaw, and the modern boy gets his importance among us, when, because of bodily function, he awakens to the consciousness of the meaning of the home. This comes gradually at puberty or adolescence with the knowledge of the sex purpose. And it is the quality of this knowledge, its purity and fear and regard, that makes the lad a worthy member of the larger whole, ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander

... than this as proof of either the "concealment" of some "sexual secret" of childhood (and where lives there a man or woman that has not sexual memories, not necessarily secrets, of some sort or other, related to the period of puberty or antedating it by a certain varying period?) or the establishment of a relationship other than co-existence or coincidence, between the speech embarrassment and the "concealed sexuality" (just as if even proof of the existence of this relationship was sufficient testimony of the causative ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... pregnant or menstrual condition. Among all primitive nations, including the ancient Hebrews, we find an elaborate code of rules in regard to the conduct and treatment of women on arriving at the age of puberty, during pregnancy and the menstrual periods, and at childbirth. Among the Cherokees the presence of a woman under any of these conditions, or even the presence of any one who has come from a house where such a woman resides, ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney

... girls may be married before or after puberty, but the Golkars of Chanda insist on infant marriage, and fine the parents if an unmarried girl becomes adolescent. On the other hand, the Kaonra Ahirs of Mandla make a practice of not getting a girl married till the signs of puberty have appeared. It is said ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... prevailed throughout the southern states that the first born of each slave maiden should be the son or daughter of her master and the girls were forced into maternity at puberty. The mothers naturally resisted this terrible practice and Harriott was determined to ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... the ceremony when girls attained puberty. The customs, on this occasion, are described by Molina, p. 53. See also Yamqui Pachacuti, p. 80, and the ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa

... larynx grows steadily up to the age of about six, but at this time growth ceases, and until puberty the vocal cords, larynx, and throat muscles develop in strength and flexibility, without increasing appreciably in size. This means that from six until the beginning of adolescence the voice maintains approximately the same ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens

... ruling social principle, stood certain customs, which modern writers, ignorant of their meaning, designate as "prostitution." In Babylon, it was a religious duty with the maid, who had reached puberty, to appear once in the temple of Mylitta in order to offer her maidenhood as a sacrifice, by surrendering herself to some man. Similarly happened in the Serapeum of Memphis; in Armenia, in honor of the goddess Anaitis; in Cyprus; in Tyrus and Sidon, in honor ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... authors of manuals to make the meshes fine, comes between him and English literature, substituting arguments and hesitations for the excitement at the first reading of the great poets which should be a sort of violent imaginative puberty. His hesitations and arguments may have been right, the Catholic philosophy may be more profound than Milton's morality, or Shelley's vehement vision; but none the less do we lose life by losing that recklessness Castiglione thought necessary even in good manners, and ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats

... bestowing upon ignorant and savage negroes a psychical acuteness which far transcends that of the laity of civilized races! What do the Wa-kamba know of sanitation, haematuria, and the larva of Bilharzia![E] Circumcision among these people always occurs at puberty, and is, unquestionably, a phallic rite. Parenthetically, it may be stated here that a few of the primitive peoples still in existence appear to have grasped the idea of the life-giving principle, and to have established worship of the functio ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir

... are grown, either for themselves or for their sons, for whom they are desirous of providing wives. The compensation to the father is usually made in horses or mules; and the girl remains with her parents till the age of puberty, which is thirteen or fourteen, when she is surrendered to her husband. At the same time the father often makes a present to the husband equal to what he had formerly received as the price of his daughter, though this return is optional with her parent. Sacajawea had been contracted in this ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... gold and silver ornaments, etc., which is termed Tam Kwaan. Even so early the infant's hair is shaved off, except the top-knot, which is permitted to grow until the child has arrived at the age of puberty. ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... of boys and girls, prior to the age of puberty, are alike. The growth of the larynx, which in each is quite rapid up to the age of six years, then, according to all authorities with which the writer is conversant, ceases, and the vocal bands neither lengthen nor thicken, to any appreciable extent, before the time of change of voice, ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard

... besides, to collect, of these same races, their half-breeds, and the white race, more minute particulars than as yet obtained, on the duration and difficult phases and epoch of puberty. ...
— Movement of the International Literary Exchanges, between France and North America from January 1845 to May, 1846 • Various

... men of Sodom, both old and young, flock to Lot's house? Is it likely that every male in the city, past the age of puberty, should burn with unnatural lust at one and the same time? Did they suppose that all of them could abuse the two strangers? The story is as silly ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote

... together in lawful wedlock when they are united according to law, the man having reached years of puberty, and the woman being of a marriageable age, whether they be independent or dependent: provided that, in the latter case, they must have the consent of the parents in whose power they respectively are, the necessity of which, and even of its being given before ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian

... formulates itself. There is one thing more to add: in the case of boys it would seem better at the age of seven or eight for the father to replace the mother in the role of suggester, while the mother, of course, performs the office throughout for her girls. Should any signs appear that the period of puberty is bringing with it undue difficulties or perils, the nightly practice might be resumed in the form of particular suggestions bearing on the specific difficulties. It must be remembered, however, that ...
— The Practice of Autosuggestion • C. Harry Brooks

... here glancing at a rule of the Roman law on a point of great difficulty, interest, and importance—i. e. where two persons above the age of puberty perished by the same accident, the younger was presumed to have been the survivor; but if one was under the age of puberty, the other was presumed to have been the survivor.—(Dig. lib. 34, tit. 5, Sec.Sec. 9, 22, 23.) It is ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... a bony encasement too small to admit the full and free expansion of the lungs, enlarged by the superabundant blood, which is determined to those organs during that first half-score of years immediately succeeding puberty. Well-formed chests offer no impediment to its inroads, if the volume of blood be out of proportion to the expansibility and capacity of the pulmonary organs. Hence it is most apt to occur precisely ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... all about sexual morality; how men and women should live; the law from the age of puberty to marriage; the law of marriage; what a man who truly loves a woman will do; a true union; how women are protected; the false and the true sense of duty; what is the ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous

... stage. For the first time the boy becomes a unit in society. Hitherto he has played for his own hand; his games have been games in which personal prowess was the desired aim. Now he feels that he is one of a team. Even before puberty the team-forming impulse is seen; Putter, for instance, in The Boy and his Gang, gives ten to ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill

... The elevation above the vulva, which during puberty becomes covered with hair, is called by the fanciful name, mons Veneris, or Venus' mountain. It is usually well padded ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson

... the vessels of the jaws to produce those of the teeth; those of the fingers to produce the nails; those of the skin to produce the hair; in the same manner as afterwards, about the age of puberty, the beard and other great changes in the form of the body and disposition of the mind are produced in consequence of new developments; for, if the animal is deprived of these developments, those changes do not take place. These changes I believe to be formed not by elongation or ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler

... of home-sickness is of essential significance and must not be undervalued. It has been much studied and the notion has been reached that children mainly (in particular during the period of puberty), and idiotic and weak persons, suffer much from home-sickness, and try to combat the ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... persons of illustrious or honorable rank, bishops and their presbyters, professors of the liberal arts, soldiers and their families, municipal officers, and their posterity to the third generation, and all children under the age of puberty. But a fatal maxim was introduced into the new jurisprudence of the empire, that in the case of treason, which included every offence that the subtlety of lawyers could derive from a hostile intention towards the prince or republic, all privileges were suspended, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... insure a reduction of this 'alarming increase,' and effectually to check the fruitfulness of generation, even the unmanly and scandalous proposition is made to remove principally those of both sexes who are just come to the age of puberty! The system of espionage, established by Napoleon to prevent the possibility of a successful conspiracy, was not more detestable and observant than is this violent and unnatural project. 'If young females were encouraged to go'!—why, ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison

... enough to dispense with the maternal nutriment, should be placed with a few doe rabbits of his own age, apart from other animals. He will soon become familiar with the does, and when they attain the age of puberty, all the rabbits save one or two should be removed. Speedily those left with the hare will become with young, upon which they should be removed, and replaced by others. After this the hare should be kept in a hutch by himself, and a doe left with him at night only. ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron

... proper to provide wives. the compensation given in such cases usually consists of horses or mules which the father receives at the time of contract and converts to his own uce. the girl remains with her parents untill she is conceived to have obtained the age of puberty which with them is considered to be about the age of 13 or 14 years. the female at this age is surrendered to her sovereign lord and husband agreeably to contract, and with her is frequently restored by the father quite as much as he received in the first instance in payment for his daughter; ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... they seem to be people always in flight. Their wives live in these wagons, and there weave their miserable garments; and here, too, they sleep with their husbands, and bring up their children till they reach the age of puberty; nor, if asked, can any one of them tell you where he was born, as he was conceived in one place, born in another at a great distance, and brought up in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... give you Calmet's remarks; "A father could not sell his daughter as a slave, according to the Rabbins, until she was at the age of puberty, and unless he were reduced to the utmost indigence. Besides, when a master bought an Israelitish girl, it was always with the presumption that he would take her to wife." Hence Moses adds, "if she please not her master, and he does not think fit to marry her, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... delight, "Ah, look at that good omen!—now our journey will be sure to be prosperous." After fording the stream, we sat down to rest, and were visited by all the inhabitants, who were more naked than any people we had yet seen. All the maidens, even at the age of puberty, did not hesitate to stand boldly in front of us—for evil thoughts were not in their minds. From this we rose over a stony hill to the settlement of Vihembe, which, being the last on the Usui frontier, induced me to give our guides three wires each, and four ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... affair. No other system would be possible under past and present conditions in India. In the case of infant marriages, the children concerned have, of course, neither knowledge of, nor special interest in, the matter. Even in cases where the future bride and bridegroom have attained puberty, no sentiment is ever allowed to enter, as a consideration, into the matter. The first question asked is whether the parties belong to the same caste and are connected by family ties. If so, the marriage may be a suitable one. It ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... for a time on the impetus already received, and should eventually decay through failure of any memory to support it, and tell it what to do. This corresponds absolutely with what we observe in organisms generally, and explains, on the one hand, why the age of puberty marks the beginning of completed development—a riddle hitherto not only unexplained but, so far as I have seen, unasked; it explains, on the other hand, the phenomena of old age—hitherto without even ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler

... from the age of four on the boys spend most of their time in the gamal, while the girls remain under their mother's care. Clothes are not worn by the boys till they have joined the Suque, which, in some cases, takes place long after puberty. The girls seem to begin to wear something whenever the mother thinks fit, generally between the ages of four and seven. From that moment every connection between brother and sister ceases; they may not speak to each other, ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... the chimpanzee is either nervous or hysterical. After six years of age it is irritable and difficult to manage. After seven years of age (puberty) it is rough, domineering and dangerous. The male is given to shouting, yelling, shrieking and roaring, and when quite angry rages like a demon. I know of no wild animal that is more dangerous per pound than a male chimpanzee over eight years of age. ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... Then its peculiar power to act as a stimulant to the growth of bone and the soft supporting and connecting tissues like tendons and ligaments comes into play. If the overaction or excess of secretion begins in childhood or adolescence, that is, before puberty, there results a great elongation of the bones, so that a giant is the consequence. Now giants have always appealed to the imagination of the little man, and have had all kinds of wonderful abilities ascribed to them by him. The giants and ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... salamander, and compel it to appear when called, and render answers to such questions as the viewer should propose. It is remarkable that the sage himself did not pretend to see the spirit; but the task of viewer, or reader, was entrusted to a third party, a boy or girl usually under the years of puberty. Dr. Dee, an excellent mathematician, had a stone of this kind, and is said to have been imposed upon concerning the spirits attached to it, their actions and answers, by the report of one Kelly who acted as his viewer. The unfortunate Dee was ruined by his associates ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... and, being a descendant of the Prophet, wore a green turban. In his conversation he was affable and unaffected. I asked him what persons could see in the magic mirror, and he said they were a boy not arrived at puberty, a virgin, a black female slave, and a pregnant woman. In order to make sure that there was no collusion, I despatched my servant to an intimate friend and asked him to send me his son. While we waited, I prepared by the magician's direction frankincense and coriander-seed, and a chafing-dish ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham

... and blacken the teeth. When a boy or girl has reached the age of puberty, it is time that this beautifying should be done. There is, however, no prohibition to having it performed earlier if desired. The candidate places his head against the operator and grips a stick of wood between his teeth while each tooth ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole

... at Stanton. "Ah. You frown, my friend. Have I made them sound heartless, without the finer feelings of which we humans are so proud? Not so. When Junior Nipe fails his puberty tests, when Mama and Papa Nipe are sent to their final reward, I have no doubt that there is sadness in the hearts of their loved ones as the honored T-bones are ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... the same subject, by meeting and imparting suggestions, make all the ideas of each the common stock of all. Hyperboreans have a mental disease which renders them liable to suggestion. The women are afflicted by hysteria before puberty. Later they show the phenomena of "possession,"—dancing and singing,—and still ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... opening doors noiselessly, with all the skill of an accomplished thief, he pillaged shop and cellar, and sold his plunder in remote parts of the town under assumed names. It is difficult to understand how his strength supported the fatigue of this double existence; he had barely arrived at puberty, and art had been obliged to assist the retarded development of nature. But he lived only for evil, and the Spirit of Evil supplied the physical vigour which was wanting. An insane love of money (the only passion he knew) brought him by degrees back to his starting-point ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... of a certain desert tribe, and for eight hours of every day, until their puberty, confined them ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer

... monogamists, and generally are forced by the parents to marry before the age of puberty, but the bridegroom, or his father or elder, has to purchase the bride at a price mutually agreed upon by the relations. These people live in cabins on posts or trees 60 to 70 feet from the ground, and defend themselves ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... spectacles. . . . The ugliness associated with the name of Cook was once explained to me in this wise, and the explanation at first sight seemed satisfactory: "The United Kingdom, justifiably jealous of the beauty of its daughters, submits them to a jury when they reach the age of puberty; and those who are classed as too ugly to reproduce their kind are accorded an unlimited account at Thomas Cook & Sons, and thus vowed to a course of perpetual travel, which leaves them no time to think of certain trifles incidental to life." ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti

... yielded without difficulty to the solicitations of the sailors. "Some of them," says he, "who came on board for this purpose, seemed not to be above nine or ten years old, and had not the least marks of puberty. So early an acquaintance with the world seems to argue an uncommon degree of voluptuousness, and cannot fail of affecting the nation in general. The effect, which was immediately obvious to me, was the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... we talk about the beginning of anything in nature or in our own lives! In our experience there must be a first, but when did manhood begin; when did puberty, when did old age, begin? When did each stage of our mental growth begin? When or where did the English language begin, or the French, or the German? Was there a first English word spoken? From the first animal sound, if we ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs

... by certain rules, which vary in different countries, particularly as to the age of girls, i.e. whether they are over or under puberty. Among the witches there appears to have been a definite rule that no girl under puberty had sexual intercourse with the Devil. This is even stated as a fact by so great an authority as Bodin: 'Les diables ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray

... that, with them, every one who is not judged utterly unfit is duly initiated; whereas, with us, the higher education is offered to some who are unfit, whilst many who are fit never have the luck to get it. The initiation-custom is intended to tide the boys over the difficult time of puberty, and turn them into responsible men. The whole of the adult males assist in the ceremonies. Special men, however, are told off to tutor the youth—a lengthy business, since it entails a retirement, perhaps for six months, into the bush with their charges; who are there taught the tribal traditions, ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett

... boys and girls arrive at the perfect age of puberty, they visit each other familiarly, and are suffered so to do. The girls, sensible that they will be no longer mistresses of their heart, when once they are married, know how to dispose of it to advantage, and form their wardrobe by the sale of their favours; for there, as well ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... reached puberty he became a Giant and went off to live in a castle in the forest. But we have remained friends through our connection in ...
— Rastignac the Devil • Philip Jose Farmer

... Franchise's presence at this return to humane conditions which, not an hour after Mamma had refused to come up to my room and had sent the snubbing message that I was to go to sleep, raised me to the dignity of a grown-up person, brought me of a sudden to a sort of puberty of sorrow, to emancipation from tears. I ought then to have been happy; I was not. It struck me that my mother had just made a first concession which must have been painful to her, that it was a first step down from the ideal she ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... period of puberty the sexual instinct makes itself felt for the first time; as a rule, if its nature is not recognised, it is accompanied by restlessness and depression. I do not believe that the instinct is, as soon ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka

... their lives comfortable; lest the crossing of those inclinations should precipitate them to commit those follies that may bring an indelible stain upon their families. The inclination of maids to marriage may be known by many symptoms; for when they arrive at puberty, which is about the fourteenth or fifteenth year of their age, then their natural purgations begin to flow; and the blood, which is no longer to augment their bodies, abounding, stirs up their minds to venery. ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous

... minute enquiries, and a curious inspection, I am able to declare (however respectable I may hold the authority of these historians in other points), that their assertions are erroneous, and proceeding from a want of a thorough knowledge of the customs of the Indians. After the age of puberty, their bodies, in their natural state, are covered in the same manner as those of the Europeans. The men, indeed, esteem a beard very unbecoming, and take great pains to get rid of it, nor is there any ever to be perceived on their faces, except when they grow old, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... of Vidarbha by indirect hints. And king Bhima, hearing of this from the handmaids of Damayanti, regarded the affair of his daughter to be serious. And he asked himself, "Why is it that my daughter seemeth to be so ill now?" And the king, reflecting by himself that his daughter had attained to puberty, concluded that Damayanti's Swayamvara should take place. And the monarch, O exalted one, (invited) all the rulers of the earth, saying, Ye heroes, know that Damayanti's Swayamvara is at hand. And all the kings, hearing of Damayanti's Swayamvara, ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... great mental revolution which occurs at puberty may go beyond its physiological limits in some instances, and become pathological. The vague feelings, blind longings, and obscure impulses which then arise in the mind, attest the awakening of an impulse which ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... other hand, the women and children were disgusting objects. The latter were much subject to diseases, and were dreadfully emaciated. It is evident that numbers of them die in their infancy for want of care and nourishment. We remarked none at the age of incipient puberty, but the most of them under six. In stating that the men were more prepossessing than any we had seen, I would not be understood to mean that they differed in any material point either from the ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt

... childhood, in which the new creature, though immature, found itself able to live and grow independently. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with their marked characteristics of transition, may stand for puberty, and the centuries since the year 1500 for our prime. The metaphor works out sufficiently well to throw light on our particular problem: the legacy bequeathed to the Modern West by ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... to the sacred animal, but it is no offence to let a cow starve to death. A girl may be married to inanimate objects as already seen, or to an old man or a relative without any intention that she shall live with him as a wife, but simply so that she may be married before reaching puberty. If she goes through the ceremony of marriage she is held to be married. Yet the motive for infant-marriage is held to be that a girl should begin to bear children as soon as she is physically capable of doing so, and such a marriage is useless from ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... puberty in girls takes place from the tenth to the twelfth year, but few become mothers at a very early age. When parturition is about to take place the woman retires to a little distance in the bush, and is attended by an experienced matron. Delivery is usually very easy, and the mother is almost always ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray

... classes of people residing in a village, to one that sells the Vedas,[12] to a Brahmana that cooks for Sudra, to one that too by birth is a Brahmana but who is destitute of the occupations of his order, is in vain. The gift to one that has married a girl after the accession of puberty, to females, to one that sports with snakes, and to one that is employed in menial offices, is also in vain. These sixteen kinds of gifts are productive of no merits. That man who with mind clouded with darkness giveth away from ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... Bacon, as well as by the peasants who read nothing at all. "In Cornwall, when a child is born in the interval between an old moon and the first appearance of a new one, it is said that it will never live to reach the age of puberty. Hence the saying, 'no moon, no man.' In the same county, too, when a boy is born in the wane of the moon, it is believed that the next birth will be a girl, and vice versa; and it is also commonly said that when a birth takes place on the 'growing of the moon' the next child ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... later, a movement toward conscious Metempsychosis, and many of the race are just moving on to that plane. In India the highly developed individuals grow into a clear recollection of their past lives when they reach the age of puberty, and when their brains are developed sufficiently to grasp the knowledge locked up in the depths of the soul. In the meantime the individual's memory of the past is locked away in the recesses of his mind, just as are many facts ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... the growth and development of the individual are rapidly progressing, the reproductive powers remain almost inactive, and that the commencement of reproduction not only indicates an arrest of growth, but, in a great measure, contributes toward it. From infancy to puberty, the body and its individual organs, structurally as well as functionally, are in a state of gradual and progressive evolution. Men and women generally increase in stature until the twenty-fifth year, and it is safe to assume that perfection of function ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... voicebox is close to the tongue. The wedges, according to Merkel, are strongly developed; the vocal ligaments are short and thick, and the pockets deep. Up to the third year the voicebox grows very considerably, but no particular alterations take place from that time to the period of puberty, which generally occurs at the age of 14 or 15, rather earlier in girls than in boys. This period of change lasts from six to twelve months, or sometimes even two or three years. During this time the ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke

... for the bearing of children. Although every ovum that will be produced as long as a woman lives has already sprung into existence by the time she is born, not a single one ripens for from twelve to fifteen years. The ripening process begins about the time of puberty, and, unless suspended through the occurrence of pregnancy, continues until the menopause. During this period, which is also characterized by the periodical appearance of menstruation, one ovum ripens each month; sometimes, though ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons

... "Ihtilam" the sign of puberty in boy or girl; this, like all emissions of semen, voluntary or involuntary, requires the Ghuzl or total ablution before prayers can be said, etc. See vol. v. 199, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... fourteen days. The patient may communicate the disease for ten days after the fever is past, and needs to be isolated for that period. Earache and noises in the ear frequently accompany mumps, and rarely abscess of the ear and deafness result. The most common complication occurs in males past puberty, when, during recovery or a week or ten days later, one or both testicles become painful and swollen, and this continues for as long a time as the original mumps. Less often the breasts and sexual organs of females are ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various

... fifteen to twenty-five years, when he is growing from boyhood to mature adult life, is called the period of adolescence. The period of adolescence is ushered in by a series of physical and psychical changes which make a well defined initial period called puberty. The period of puberty is about two years in length, and in the average case among American boys, covers the period between the fifteenth and seventeenth years, and is completed when the youth can produce fertile semen capable of fertilizing the human ovum. It is now universally recognized, however, that when the youth ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall

... one sex, absent or rudimentary in the other, but that their development is connected with the functional maturity and activity of the gonads. There is usually an early immature period of life in which the male and female are similar, and then at the time of puberty the somatic sexual characters of either sex, generally most marked in the male, develop. In some cases, where the activity of the gonads is limited to a particular season of the year, the sexual ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham

... Indians of North America, when a boy reaches puberty he is sent away from his father's lodge in search of a spiritual protector or totem. Seeking a secluded spot, he abstains from food until he is favoured in a dream with a vision of some animal or bird, which is at once adopted by him.[29] This custom obtains with most of the ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen

... Prune seka pruno. Pruning shears brancxotondilo. Prussian, a Pruso. Prussic acid ciana acido. Pry sercxi, rigardeti. Psalm psalmo. Psalmody psalmokantado. Psalter psalmaro. Pseudonym pseuxdonomo. Psychology psikologio. Puberty virigxo. Public publika. Publican drinkejmastro. Public-house drinkejo. Publicity publikigo, publikigeco. Publish publikigi, eldoni. Puerile infana. Puff blovi. Puff up plenblovi. Pug-dog mopseto. Pull tiri. Pull out eltiri. Pull ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... to any of the former kings both in the arts of war and peace, and in renown. His sons were now nigh the age of puberty; for which reason Tarquin was more urgent that the assembly for the election of a king should be held as soon as possible. The assembly having been proclaimed, he sent the boys out of the way to hunt just before the time of the meeting. ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius

... and must acquire our esteem, by inculcating moral duties analogous to the dictates of our own hearts. The religion of Zoroaster was abundantly provided with the former and possessed a sufficient portion of the latter. At the age of puberty, the faithful Persian was invested with a mysterious girdle, the badge of the divine protection; and from that moment all the actions of his life, even the most indifferent, or the most necessary, were sanctified by their peculiar prayers, ejaculations, or genuflections; the omission of which, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... his heirs succeeded to all his property by hereditary right. If he left no will, his estate devolved upon his relatives in a certain order prescribed by law. The power of making a testament only belonged to citizens above puberty. Children under the paternal power could not make a will. Males above fourteen and females above twelve, when not under power, could make wills without the authority of their guardian; but pupils, lunatics, prisoners of war, criminals, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord

... and on each breast is generally a mark in shape of a heart, very neatly executed. The large cicatrices which appear on the bodies of the tribes of Southern Australia are not used here; nor is a front tooth taken out at the age of puberty. The 'septum' of the nose is pierced, and the crescent-shaped tooth, of the dugong is worn in it on state occasions; large holes are also made in the ears, and a piece of wood as large as a bottle cork, and whitened with pipe clay, is inserted in them. A practise of cutting the hair off very ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine

... inherits his totem name, usually through the mother's side. The special animal which protects an individual savage (Zapotec, tona; Guatemalan, nagual; North America, Manitou, 'medicine') is not that savage's totem. {89a} The nagual, tona, or manitou is selected for each particular savage, at birth or puberty, in various ways: in America, North and Central, by a dream in a fast, or after a dream. ('Post-hypnotic suggestion.') But a savage is born to his kin-totem. A man is born a wolf of the Delawares, his totem is the wolf, he cannot help himself. But after, or in, his medicine ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang

... companion of Pievtsov, in 1889, says: "In the streets one meets many men and women with large goitres, a malady attributed to the bad quality of the water running in the town conduits, and drunk by the inhabitants in its natural state. It appears in men at the age of puberty, and in women when they marry." (Proc. R. G. S. 2 ser. XII. 1890, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... Mourning Language Indications of Tribe or Rank Vain Desire to Attract Attention Objects of Tattooing Tattooing on Pacific Islands Tattooing in America Tattooing in Japan Scarification Alleged Testimony of Natives, Misleading Testimony of Visitors "Decoration" at the Age of Puberty "Decoration" as a Test of Courage Mutilation, Fashion, and Emulation Personal Beauty versus Personal Decoration De Gustibus non est Disputandum? Indifference to Dirt Reasons for Bathing Corpulence versus ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... have supposed, first upon the north-west coast, we find, from the testimony of Captain Flinders and Dampier, that the male natives of that part of the country, have two front teeth of the upper jaw knocked out at the age of puberty, and that they also undergo the rite of circumcision; but it does not appear that any examination was made with sufficient closeness to ascertain, whether [Note 98: Vide Note 78.] any other ceremony was conjoined with that of circumcision. ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... ever cease to exist. But that the relationship should continue to exist as a tie is unnatural and tends to be harmful. At a certain stage in the development of the child the physical tie with the parent is severed, and the umbilical cord cut. At a later stage in development, when puberty is attained and adolescence is feeling its way towards a complete adult maturity, the spiritual tie must be severed. It is absolutely essential that the young spirit should begin to essay its own wings. If its energy is not equal to this adventure, then it is the part of a truly loving parent ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis

... They had a large number of cut-and-dried orations, which professional rhetoricians delivered on all important occasions in life. The new-born child was harangued at, in good set terms, when it was but a few days old. Betrothals, marriages, festivals, the commencement of puberty and of pregnancy, etc., were all celebrated by the delivery of discourses. Fathers taught their children, teachers their pupils, monarchs their vassals, war chiefs their soldiers, by such declamations. The general name for these speeches was ...
— Aboriginal American Authors • Daniel G. Brinton

... part to other deviations from rectitude and nature than those which concern diet. The mistakes cherished by society respecting the connection of the sexes, whence the misery and diseases of unsatisfied celibacy, unenjoying prostitution, and the premature arrival of puberty, necessarily spring; the putrid atmosphere of crowded cities; the exhalations of chemical processes; the muffling of our bodies in superfluous apparel; the absurd treatment of infants:—all these and innumerable other ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... with every people, the arcana of life and death, the mysteries of birth, childhood, puberty, adolescence, maidenhood, womanhood, manhood, motherhood, fatherhood, have called forth the profoundest thought and speculation. From the contemplation of these strange phenomena sprang the esoteric doctrines of Egypt and ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... children is large. Of fifteen families in Bontoc, each having had three or more children, the death rate up to the age of puberty was over 60 per cent. According to the Magulang census the death rate of children from 5 to 10 years of age is 63.73 ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... the only people in the hills who tattoo are certain tribes of the Bhoi country which are really Mikir. These tattoo females on the forehead when they attain the age of puberty, a straight horizontal line being drawn from the parting of the hair down the forehead and nose. The line is one-eighth to one-quarter of an inch broad. The Lynngams occasionally tattoo a ring ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon

... with, but the most part learn To plague themselves withal, they know not why: 'T was strange that one so young should thus concern His brain about the action of the sky;[o] If you think 't was Philosophy that this did, I can't help thinking puberty assisted. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... once went to Bambala, where white traders lived, when our informant was a child, and returned when he had become a boy of about ten years. He went again, and returned when it was time to knock out his son's teeth. As that takes place at the age of puberty, he must have spent at least five years in each journey. He added that many who went there never returned, because they liked that country better than this. They had even forsaken their wives and children; and children ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... in manifestation; we see in the one to whom we are merciful ourself in another form, under different conditions, and we do to him as we would have him do to us. It seems to require a certain maturity of mind, acquired or inherited; children below puberty seldom have it. It is easily forfeited, and indifference to the suffering of others is readily established. It is to be guarded and developed as a sacred possession of man at his highest, and constantly nourished by thought ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... is as yet unconquered, and when we look in their faces we are disconcerted. Infancy conforms to nobody; all conform to it; so that one babe commonly makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it. So God has armed youth and puberty and manhood no less with its own piquancy and charm, and made it enviable and gracious and its claims not to be put by, if it will stand by itself. Do not think the youth has no force, because he cannot speak to you and me. Hark! in the next room his voice is sufficiently clear and emphatic. ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... to say, maleness and femaleness—is present from the moment of birth, and in every act or deed of every child. But sex in the real sense of dynamic sexual relationship, this does not exist in a child, and cannot exist until puberty and after. True, children have a sort of sex consciousness. Little boys and little girls may even commit indecencies together. And still it is nothing vital. It is a sort of shadow activity, a sort of dream-activity. It has ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence

... the prevalent fashion, with large hoops, and like the daughters of the nobility who have not yet attained the age of puberty, although the young countess was marriageable. I had never dared to stare so openly at the bosom of a young lady of quality, but I thought there was no harm in fixing my eyes on a spot where there was nothing ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt



Words linked to "Puberty" :   adolescence, time of life, pubertal



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