praecox

English

Noun

praecox (uncountable)

1. (psychiatry, now historical) Dementia praecox.
   • 1995, Elizabeth Lunbeck, The Psychiatric Persuasion:

     Psychiatrists did not know the etiology of dementia praecox, but their working assumption was that the brains of praecox patients exhibited "demonstrable microscopic cortex changes" as well as "gross anatomical anomalies" […]

2. Someone suffering from dementia praecox.
   • 1946, A. A. Brill, Lectures on Psychoanalytic Psychiatry, Alfred Knopf, page 7:

     Occasionally I would run across mild praecoxes who were through their acute episode and became amenable to treatment […] .

Alternative forms

• precox

See also

• ejaculation praecox
• ejaculatio praecox

Anagrams

• exocarp, precoxa

Latin

Alternative forms

• praecoquus

Etymology

From praecoquō +‎ -s, from prae- + coquō.

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈprae̯.kɔks]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈprɛː.koks]

Adjective

praecox (genitive praecocis); third-declension one-termination adjective

1. ripe before its time; premature
2. precocious; untimely

Declension

Third-declension one-termination adjective.

	singular			plural
	masc./fem.	neuter		masc./fem.	neuter
nominative	praecox			praecocēs	praecocia
genitive	praecocis			praecocium
dative	praecocī			praecocibus
accusative	praecocem	praecox		praecocīs praecocēs	praecocia
ablative	praecocī praecoce			praecocibus
vocative	praecox			praecocēs	praecocia

Derived terms

• ⇒ Late Latin: (persica) praecocia (literally “early-ripe (peaches)”), (mālum) praecoquum (literally “early-ripe (apple)”)
  • → Ancient Greek: πραικόκιον (praikókion) (see there for further descendants)

Descendants

• → Catalan: precoç
• → English: precocious
• → French: précoce
• → Friulian: precoç
• → Italian: precoce
• → Occitan: precòce
• → Romanian: precoce
• → Sicilian: pricoci
• → Spanish: precoz

References

• “praecox”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “praecox”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.