festuca

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See also: Festuca

Italian

Etymology

From Latin festūca.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /fesˈtu.ka/, [fes̪ˈt̪uːkä]
  • Rhymes: -uka
  • Hyphenation: fe‧stù‧ca

Noun

festuca f (plural festuche)

  1. straw
    • 1321, Dante Alighieri, La divina commedia: Inferno [The Divine Comedy: Hell], 12th edition (paperback), Le Monnier, published 1994, Canto XXXIV, page 506, lines 10–12:
      Già era, e con paura il metto in metro, ¶ là dove l'ombre tutte eran coperte, ¶ e trasparien come festuca in vetro.
      Now was I, and with fear in verse I put it, there where the shades were wholly covered up, and glimmered through like unto straws in glass.

References

  • festuca in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

Latin

Alternative forms

  • fistūca (ram, piledriver), historically sometimes considered a separate word

Etymology

Perhaps connected to ferula, with a common earlier stem *fes-. De Vaan notes if suffixation is with +‎ -ūcus as in several plant names: sambūcus (elderberry), albūcus (asphodel; asphodel bulb), lactūca (lettuce), the stem could be *festo. Gaffiot numbers the sense of ram, piledriver, usually spelt fistūca, a separate word, but it is offered as an alternate spelling in De Vaan.

Pronunciation

Noun

festūca f (genitive festūcae); first declension

  1. straw
  2. stalk, stem
  3. rod used to touch slaves in ceremonial manumission
  4. ram, piledriver (often spelt fistūca in this sense)

Declension

First-declension noun.

Case Singular Plural
Nominative festūca festūcae
Genitive festūcae festūcārum
Dative festūcae festūcīs
Accusative festūcam festūcās
Ablative festūcā festūcīs
Vocative festūca festūcae

Descendants

  • French: fétu

References

  • festuca”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • festuca 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)
  • festuca in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
  • festuca”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
  • festuca”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin