farfarum
Latin
Etymology
Unknown, presumed a borrowing from another Italian language.
Nikolaev proposes a derivation from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂s-o-bʰor-o-, a compound of *bʰeh₂-es- (“shining”) and *bʰer- (“to bear”) also found in Ancient Greek φωσφόρος (phōsphóros, literally “light-bearing”). The name may be assumed to arise from the flowers' radiant shape. The -a- from the second syllable would then stem from assimilation to the first syllable.[1]
Usage notes
The only attested forms, bar the feminine by-forms, are accusative singular farfarum and farfugium in Pliny’s Natural History 24, 135 and genitive singular farferi in Plautus’s Poenulus 478. As these endings syncretize more than one possible lemma form, it has been posited variously by lexicographers, and borrowed by taxonomists, as either masculine farfarus or neuter farfarum or masculine farfar.
Declension
Second-declension noun (neuter).
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | farfarum | farfara |
| Genitive | farfarī | farfarōrum |
| Dative | farfarō | farfarīs |
| Accusative | farfarum | farfara |
| Ablative | farfarō | farfarīs |
| Vocative | farfarum | farfara |
Descendants
- Italian: farfara
References
- Nikolaev, Alexander (2018) “Latin farferum ‘coltsfoot’: A trace of Indo-European poetic language in Latin plant nomenclature?”, in Indo-European linguistics and classical philology, volume XXII, Institute for Linguistic Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, , →ISSN, pages 961–966
Further reading
- “farfarus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- farfarum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.