ferula

Latin ferula (“giant fennel (whose stalks were once used in punishing schoolboys); rod, whip”), from ferire (“to strike”).

• 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 3083972, (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, James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Macmillan Press Ltd, paperback, p.50)

     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 ferulae you are to get.

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

• Laufer, earful

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

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

ferula f (genitive ferulae); first declension

1. cane
2. giant fennel or its stalk

First-declension noun.

• ⇒ Aragonese: cañaferra
• Catalan: ferla ⇒ canyaferla
• Lombard: ferla
• Old Occitan: ferla
• Piedmontese: ferla
• Romagnol: ferla
• Sardinian: feurra
• Sicilian: ferra, fella, A Ferra
• ⇒ Spanish: cañahierla, cañaheja
• → Catalan: fèrula
• → French: férule
• → Spanish: férula
• → Translingual: Ferula

• Joan Coromines; José A. Pascual (1984), “caña”, in Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico (in Spanish), volume I (A–Ca), Madrid: Gredos, →ISBN, page 822
• Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002), “fĕrŭla”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (in German), volume 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