Word.ws English Dictionary

ferula

/ˈfɛɹ(j)ələ/

ferula noun: a ferule.

Noun

ferula (plural ferulas or ferulae)

  1. (obsolete) A ferule.
    • He humbles with a ferula the tall ones1613–1614, William Shakespeare, John Fletcher, “The Two Noble Kinsmen”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1679, →OCLC, (please...
  2. (archaic) A stroke from a cane.
    • 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.1916, 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
  3. (obsolete) The imperial sceptre in the Byzantine Empire.

Forms of ferula

pluralferulas
pluralferulae

Origin of ferula

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

Questions about ferula

What does ferula mean?
Ferula means a ferule.
What part of speech is ferula?
Ferula is a noun.
How do you pronounce ferula?
Ferula is pronounced /ˈfɛɹ(j)ələ/.
What is the plural of ferula?
The plural of ferula is ferulas.

Words near ferula in the dictionary

  1. Fertittas
  2. fertoprotective
  3. fertotoxic
  4. fertotoxicity
  5. ferucarbotran
  6. ferula
  7. ferulaceous
  8. ferulae
  9. ferular
  10. ferulars
  11. ferulary

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ferula (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-ferula.wav.

Cite this entry: “ferula.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ferula. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.