in Antiquity, a piece of timber resembling a fork, which was used by the Romans as an instrument of punishment.

There were three methods of punishing by the furca. The first, which was only ignominious, consisted in a master, for small offences, forcing a servant to carry a furca on his shoulders through the city. In the second, which was penal, the party was led round the circus, or other place, with the furca upon his neck, and whipped all the way. The third was capital. In this instance the malefactor having his head fastened on the furca, was whipped to death.

FURCHE; in Heraldry, a cross forked at the ends.

FURETIÈRE, Anthony, an eminent French philological writer, was born at Paris in the year 1620. He first studied law, and was a counsellor of parliament; but he abandoned these pursuits, adopted the ecclesiastical profession, and became abbot of Chalivoi and Clunies. He now composed various works in prose and verse, by which he greatly distinguished himself and extended his reputation. He was elected a member of the French Academy, the meetings of which learned society he assiduously attended; but having engaged in the compilation of a dictionary of the French language, at a time when his brother academicians collectively were employed in a similar undertaking, his conduct was deemed disrespectful to his colleagues; and a specimen of his work having been published in 1684, he was in the year following expelled the academy. He retaliated by publishing a Facsimile in his own defence, which, on account of its keen satire and invective, served to render his exclusion from that learned body permanent. He died in the year 1688. His dictionary was published in 1690 in two vols. folio. It was republished with improvements by Basnage de Beauval in 1701, in three vols. It afterwards received a further enlargement, and served as the basis of the Dictionnaire de Trevoux, of which an edition appeared in 1771, in eight vols. folio. Furetière's other works were Five Satires in verse, Gospel Parables in prose, Le Roman Bourgeois, &c. There is also a collection of anecdotes by him entitled Furetièriana.