# ferula
## English
### Etymology

Borrowed from Latin ferula (“giant fennel”), whose stalks were once used in punishing schoolboys. Doublet of ferule.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈfɛɹələ/

### Noun

ferula (plural ferulas or ferulae)
* (obsolete) A ferule.
** 1613–1614, William Shakespeare, John Fletcher, “The Two Noble Kinsmen”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1679, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):He humbles with a ferula the tall ones
* (archaic) A stroke from a cane.
** 1916 December 29, James Joyce, chapter I, in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, New York, N.Y.: B[enjamin] W. Huebsch, →OCLC, page 46:And Old Barrett has a new way of twisting the note so that you can't open it and fold it again to see how many ferulæ you are to get.
* (obsolete) The imperial sceptre in the Byzantine Empire.

#### Translations
### Anagrams

* Laufer, earful

## Latin
### Etymology

Uncertain but perhaps connected to festūca (“stalk, straw”).

### Pronunciation

* (Classical Latin) IPA: /ˈfe.ru.la/, [ˈfɛrʊɫ̪ä]
* (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA: /ˈfe.ru.la/, [ˈfɛːrulä]

### Noun

ferula f (genitive ferulae); first declension
* giant fennel (Ferula communis)
* a staff, stick, rod
* a splint
* the unramified horn of a young stag

#### Declension

First-declension noun.

#### Descendants

* Insular Romance:
** Sardinian: feurra, ⇒ fiuredda, feuredda, feruledda, eruledda, fraudda
* Italo-Romance:
** Italian: ferla, ferola, ⇒ ferolaggine
** Neapolitan: ferula, fergola, fregola, ⇒ ferlizza, cannaferla
** Sicilian: ferra, fella, A Ferra, ⇒ ferluju
* Gallo-Italic:
** Lombard: ferla
** Piedmontese: ferla
** Romagnol: ferla
* Gallo-Romance:
** Catalan: ferla, ⇒ canyaferla
** Old Occitan: ferla
* Ibero-Romance:
** ⇒ Aragonese: cañaferra
* Borrowings:
** → Catalan: fèrula,
** → English: ferula
** → French: férule
*** → English: ferule
** → Italian: ferula
** → Middle High German: ferla
*** → Old Czech: berla, brla (dialectal)
**** → Old Polish: berła, perła, piorło
***** Polish: berło, barło, berła (Middle Polish)
****** → Kashubian: berło
***** Silesian: berło
**** Czech: berla, berle
** → Occitan: ferula
** → Spanish: férula
** → Translingual: Ferula

### References

* Joan Coromines, José A[ntonio] Pascual (1984) “caña”, in Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico [Critic Castilian and Hispanic Etymological Dictionary] (in Spanish), volume I (A–Ca), Madrid: Gredos, →ISBN, page 822
* Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002) “fĕrŭla”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, volumes 3: D–F, page 477
* “ferula”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
* “ferula”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
* ferula in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
* ferula in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
* ferula in Georges, Karl Ernst, Georges, Heinrich (1913–1918) Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th edition, volume 1, Hahnsche Buchhandlung