femur

See also: Femur, fémur, fèmur, and fêmur

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin femur (“thigh”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfiːmə(ɹ)/
• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈfimɚ/

  • Audio (Colorado):

    (file)

• (Australia, New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˈfiːmə(ɹ)/
• Rhymes: -iːmə(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: fe‧mur

Noun

femur (plural femurs or femora)

1. (anatomy) A thighbone.
2. (entomology) The middle segment of the leg of an insect, between the trochanter and the tibia.
3. (arachnology) A segment of the leg of an arachnid.

Derived terms

• femoral
• femur fibula ulna syndrome
• femur head
• forefemur
• mesofemur
• metafemur
• prefemur
• transfemoral

Translations

thighbone — see thighbone

segment of insect’s leg

• Catalan: fèmur (ca) m
• Finnish: reisi (fi)
• German: Femur (de) n
• Hebrew: קוּלִית (he) f (qulít)
• Kurdish:

  Northern Kurdish: hestiyê ran (ku) m

• Polish: udo (pl) n
• Russian: бедро́ (ru) n (bedró)
• Spanish: fémur (es) m

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Esperanto: ^{(please verify)} femuro
• French: ^{(please verify)} fémur (fr) m
• Italian: ^{(please verify)} femore (it) m
• Lithuanian: ^{(please verify)} šlaunikaulis ?
• Norwegian: ^{(please verify)} lårbein n
• Swedish: ^{(please verify)} lårben (sv) n

Anagrams

• fumer

Latin

Femur (thigh)

Etymology 1

Uncertain. The heteroclitic (r/n) inflection is rather archaic (as also seen in iecur and iter), descending from Proto-Indo-European *-r̥ ~ *-n-, but no secure Proto-Indo-European origin for femur can be found. De Vaan and Lubotsky tentatively support Steinbauer's derivation from Proto-Indo-European *dʰénwr̥ (“arc, bow”); this is semantically attractive, but the hypothetical change from *-nw- to *-(n)m- from Proto-Indo-European to Latin is strange.

Alternative forms

• femen (rare)

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈfɛ.mʊr]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈfɛː.mur]

Noun

femur n (genitive feminis or femoris); third declension

1. thigh
2. thighbone
3. (figuratively) the loins; capacity to produce children
4. (architecture) the space between the grooves of a triglyph

Declension

Third-declension noun (neuter, imparisyllabic non-i-stem; two different stems).

	singular	plural
nominative	femur	femina femora
genitive	feminis femoris	feminum femorum
dative	feminī femorī	feminibus femoribus
accusative	femur	femina femora
ablative	femine femore	feminibus femoribus
vocative	femur	femina femora

Derived terms

• feminālia
• femorāle
• femorālia
• femorālis
• femorālum
• interfemus

Descendants

• → Catalan: fèmur
• → English: femur
• → French: fémur
• → Galician: fémur
• → German: Femur
• → Italian: femore
• → Occitan: fèmur
• → Portuguese: fémur (Portugal), fêmur (Brazil)
• → Romanian: femur
• → Sicilian: fèmuri
• → Spanish: fémur

Etymology 2

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈfeː.mʊr]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈfɛː.mur]

Verb

fēmur

1. first-person plural present active subjunctive of for

References

• “femur”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “femur”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "femur", in Charles du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• “femur”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French fémur.

Noun

femur n (plural femururi)

1. femur

Declension

	singular		plural
	indefinite	definite	indefinite	definite
nominative-accusative	femur	femurul	femururi	femururile
genitive-dative	femur	femurului	femururi	femururilor
vocative	femurule		femururilor