puerum

Puerum is the accusative singular form of the Latin noun puer, which means a boy or young male child. Puer is a masculine noun of the second declension and is commonly found in classical, medieval, and ecclesiastical Latin. The singular forms are Nominative puer, Genitive pueri, Dative puero, Accusative puerum, Ablative puero; the plural forms are Nominative pueri, Genitive puerorum, Dative pueris, Accusative pueros, Ablative pueris. Puerum is therefore used when the boy is the direct object of a verb, as in video puerum (“I see a boy”).

Usage and derivatives include expressions related to boyhood or childish qualities. Puer can be combined with adjectives to form compounds such as puerilis, meaning childish or boyish, and pueritia, meaning boyhood or childhood. Puer appears frequently in classical literature and poetry, with examples such as descriptions of boys in education, youth, or everyday life, and it also appears in religious texts in phrases like puer natus est in the Latin Vulgate edition of biblical passages.

Notes on style and morphology: as a second-declension noun, puer follows typical gender and case patterns of masculine nouns ending in -er in the nominative singular and -um in the accusative singular. While the form puerum is specific to contexts requiring a direct object, the broader singular and plural paradigm governs all other cases. The word serves as a basic referent for masculine youth in Latin and remains a standard example in Latin grammars and lexica.