conferva

Borrowed from Latin cōnferva. See comfrey.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /kənˈfɜːvə/

conferva (plural confervas or confervae or (obsolete) confervæ)

1. (obsolete) Any of a number of unbranched slender green freshwater alga, formerly in the genus Conferva, now mostly in Cladophora or Tribonema

• “conferva”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• cōnfirma, cōnserva

From cōnferveō (“to heal, grow together”), possibly via ellipsis of cōnferva herba f (“healing plant/herb”), with -a as the feminine form of the adjective-deriving suffix -us, -a, -um.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [kõːˈfɛr.wa]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [koɱˈfɛr.va]

cōnferva f (genitive cōnfervae); first declension

1. conferva (a green freshwater alga, formerly regarded as an aquatic plant)

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Pliny the Elder to this entry?)

2. consound (common comfrey, Symphytum officinale)
   • 300 CE – 400 CE, Pseudo-Apuleius, Herbarium 59.4:

     A Graecis dicitur sinfitum, alii confirma, alii conserva, alii pecte, alii alum Gallicum.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

First-declension noun.

• (consound): cōnsolida

• → English: conferva, comfrey
• → French: conferve

• “conferva”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• conferva in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette, page 384/1.
• “conferua” on page 398/3 of the Oxford Latin Dictionary (1st ed., 1968–82)