- 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 alternative spelling in De Vaan. Also compare fistula (“pipe, tube”).[1]
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
- Niermeyer, Jan Frederik (1976) “festuca”, in Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden, Boston: E. J. Brill
De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “fistula”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN