ferule

From Middle French ferule (modern French férule), from Latin ferula (“giant fennel”). Doublet of ferula.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfɛɹuːl/, /ˈfɛɹəl/

• Audio (Southern England):

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• Rhymes: -ɛɹəl
• Homophone: ferrule

ferule (plural ferules)

1. (historical) A ruler-shaped instrument, generally used to slap naughty children on the hand.

   Synonym: (obsolete) ferula

   • 1820 March 5, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., number VI, New York, N.Y.: C S. Van Winkle, , →OCLC:

     In his hand he swayed a ferule, that sceptre of despotic power; the birch of justice reposed on three nails behind the throne, a constant terror to evil doers, […] .

   • 1850, Herman Melville, “Something Concerning Midshipmen”, in White-Jacket; or, The World in a Man-of-War, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, publishers; London: Richard Bentley, published 1855, →OCLC, page 258:

     He [a midshipman] lords it over those below him, while lorded over himself by his superiors. It is as if with one hand a school-boy snapped his fingers at a dog, and at the same time received upon the other the discipline of the usher's ferule.

   • 1851, George Borrow, chapter VI, in Lavengro; the Scholar—the Gypsy—the Priest. , volume I, London: John Murray , →OCLC, page 85:

     The master, who stood at the end of the room, with a huge ferule under his arm, bent full upon me a look of stern appeal; […]

   • 1876, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XXI, in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Hartford, Conn.: The American Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 167:

     The schoolmaster, always severe, grew severer and more exacting than ever, for he wanted the school to make a good showing on "Examination" day. His rod and his ferule were seldom idle now—at least among the smaller pupils.

   • 1879 (date written), Robert Louis Stevenson, “Lay Morals”, in Sidney Colvin, editor, The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Edinburgh edition, volume XXI (Miscellanies, volume IV), Edinburgh: T and A Constable for Longmans Green and Co.;  , published December 1896, →OCLC, page 348:

     It is to keep a man awake, to keep him alive to his own soul and its fixed design of righteousness, that the better part of moral and religious education is directed; not only that of words and doctors, but the sharp ferule of calamity under which we are all God’s scholars till we die.

• ferulary

ferule (third-person singular simple present ferules, present participle feruling, simple past and past participle feruled)

1. (transitive) To punish with a ferule.
   • 1862, William S. Woodbridge, Captain Paul's Adventure: A "Charcoal Sketch": Ballou's Dollar Monthly Magazine, Volume 15, page 72:

     And they were right in their assumption; I could cudgel a great lubberly delinquent of a boy […] but when it came to feruling a girl […] my manhood rebelled […] .

• fueler, refuel