fabella

Borrowed from New Latin fabella, diminutive of Latin faba (“bean”).

• IPA^(key): /fəˈbɛlə/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: fa‧bel‧la

fabella (plural fabellae)

1. (anatomy) One of the small sesamoid bones situated behind the condyles of the femur, in some mammals.

From fābula +‎ -la (diminutive suffix).

fābella f (genitive fābellae); first declension

1. diminutive of fābula (“fable, tale, story”)

First-declension noun.

• fābellor

• Italian: favella
• Old French: favele
  • → English: favel
• Polish: fabuła
• Portuguese: fabela
• Romansch: faveala, faviala
• → Spanish: fabela

faba (“bean”) +‎ -ellus. From its bean-like shape and size, in some animals.

fabella f

1. (anatomy) fabella (the posterior analogue of the anterior patella)

First-declension noun.

• “fabella”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “fabella”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "fabella", 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)
• fabella in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • an anecdote: narratiuncula, fabella (Fin. 5. 15)