auricula

Unadapted borrowing from Latin auricula (“external ear; ear”). Doublet of auricle.

• Rhymes: -ɪkjʊlə

auricula (plural auriculae or auriculas)

1. (anatomy) The external part of the ear.

   Synonyms: pinna, auricle

2. (anatomy) A small conical pouch projecting from either atrium of the heart.

   Synonyms: atrial appendage, auricular appendix, auricle

3. (palynology) A pronounced thickening at the corner of a trilete spore, beyond the end of the laesura.

   Synonym: valva

4. (horticulture, plural: auriculas) An ornamental primrose (Primula auricula)

   Synonym: bear's ear

   • 1919, Michael Wood, The White Island‎^[1], page 122:

     Réné came on quietly, his trowel in one hand, some auricula roots in the other.

• “auricula”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “auricula”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

• ōricula
• ōricla (late, proscribed)

From auris (“ear”) +‎ -cula (diminutive suffix).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [au̯ˈrɪ.kʊ.ɫa]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [au̯ˈriː.ku.la]

auricula f (genitive auriculae); first declension

1. diminutive of auris:
   1. (anatomy) external ear, earlap
      • 54 B.C.E., Marcus Tullius Cicero, Epistulae ad Quintum Fratrem‎^[2]:

        Tu, quemadmodum me censes oportere esse et in re publica et in nostris inimicitiis, ita et esse et fore auricula infima scito molliorem.

        Whatever line you think I ought to take in politics and in treating my opponents, be sure I shall take, and shall be "gentler than any ear-lap.

   2. (in general) ear

      Synonym: auris

First-declension noun.

• auriculāris (adjective)
• auriculārius

Reflexes of the early monophthongized variant ōricula:

• D'Ambra, Raffaele. 1873. Vocabolario napolitano-toscano domestico di arti e mestieri. Naples: publ. by author. Page 75.
• Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1911) “auricula”, in Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (in German), page 52

• “auricula”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “auricula”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "auricula", 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)
• auricula in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.