Etymograph

English

pauper

Pauper comes from Latin pauper ‘poor’, and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *peh₂w(o)p(o)rh₃o-.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*peh₂w(o)p(o)rh₃o-1reconstructed
  2. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*paw(o)paro-1uncertain
  3. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEpauper2‘poor’
  4. Englishearliest quotation 1991pauper2

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, Latin pauper
  2. 2 Wiktionary, English pauper
  3. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1991, Art Spiegelman, Maus I: My Father Bleeds History: “He has hundreds of thousands of dollars in the…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*peh₂w(o)p(o)rh₃o-Wiktionary, Latin pauperreconstructed
  2. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*paw(o)paro-Wiktionary, Latin pauperuncertain
  3. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEpauperWiktionary, English pauper‘poor’
  4. Englishearliest quotation 1991pauperWiktionary, English pauper. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1991, Art Spiegelman, Maus I: My Father Bleeds History: “He has hundreds of thousands of dollars in the…”

Linked words

through Latin pauper ‘poor’

poor, poverty, 2 more

Today it means

noun One who is extremely poor.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “pauper”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entry for Latin pauper. 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 *peh₂w(o)p(o)rh₃o- / pauper

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