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]
farfarum n (genitive farfarī); second declension
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.
Second-declension noun (neuter).
| singular | plural | |
|---|---|---|
| nominative | farfarum | farfara |
| genitive | farfarī | farfarōrum |
| dative | farfarō | farfarīs |
| accusative | farfarum | farfara |
| ablative | farfarō | farfarīs |
| vocative | farfarum | farfara |