ferula

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

• IPA^(key): /ˈfɛɹələ/

ferula (plural ferulas or ferulae)

1. (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

2. (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.

3. (obsolete) The imperial sceptre in the Byzantine Empire.

• Laufer, earful

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

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

ferula f (genitive ferulae); first declension

1. giant fennel (Ferula communis)
2. a staff, stick, rod
3. a splint
4. the unramified horn of a young stag

First-declension noun.

• ⇒ Aragonese: cañaferra
• → Catalan: fèrula (learned), > ferla (inherited), ⇒ canyaferla
• → English: ferula
• → French: férule
  • → English: ferule
• → 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
• Lombard: ferla
• → Occitan: ferula
• Old Occitan: ferla
• Piedmontese: ferla
• Romagnol: ferla
• Sardinian: feurra
• Sicilian: ferra, fella, A Ferra
• → Spanish: férula
• → Translingual: Ferula

• 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