Etymograph

English

impious

Impious comes from Latin impius ‘godless, impious, unpatriotic’, from pius ‘pious, devout’, and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pewH- ‘to be clean, pure’.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*pewH-1‘to be clean, pure’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*pīos1‘pious, devout’reconstructed
  3. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEpius1‘pious, devout’
  4. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEimpius2‘godless, impious, unpatriotic’
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1591impious2

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, Latin impius
  2. 2 Wiktionary, English impious
  3. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1591, William Shakespeare, The First Part of Henry the Sixt: “[…] I alvvayes thought / It vvas both impious…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*pewH-Wiktionary, Latin impius‘to be clean, pure’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*pīosWiktionary, Latin impius‘pious, devout’reconstructed
  3. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEpiusWiktionary, Latin impius‘pious, devout’
  4. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEimpiusWiktionary, English impious‘godless, impious, unpatriotic’
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1591impiousWiktionary, English impious. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1591, William Shakespeare, The First Part of Henry the Sixt: “[…] I alvvayes thought / It vvas both impious…”

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *pewH- ‘to be clean, pure’

pure, deputy, reputation, pour, pity, purity, purification, purify, putative, piety, purist, puro, 17 more

through Proto-Italic *pīos ‘pious, devout’

expiation, 7 more

Today it means

adj Not pious.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “impious”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entry for Latin impius. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *pewH- / impious

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