thyrse

[thurs]

noun

Botany.

1. a compact branching inflorescence, as of the lilac, in which the main axis is indeterminate and the lateral axes are determinate.

thyrse

/ ˈθɜːsəs, θɜːs /

noun

1. botany a type of inflorescence, occurring in the lilac and grape, in which the main branch is racemose and the lateral branches cymose

thyrse

1. A dense inflorescence in which the side branches end in cymes, as in the lilac.

2. Also called thyrsus

3. See more at inflorescence

Other Word Forms

• thyrsoid adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of thyrse¹

1595–1605; < French < Latin thyrsus thyrsus

Word History and Origins

Origin of thyrse¹

C17: from French: _thyrsus

Example Sentences

Flowers in a terminal thyrse or dense panicle, often polygamous, most of them with imperfect pistils and sterile; pedicels jointed.

From Project Gutenberg

Flowers.—White; in a thyrse a foot long; many of them imperfect.

From Project Gutenberg

The shy bud hesitateth still To show the secret thyrse of white.

From Project Gutenberg

Round about him Bacchus fair Bacchantês, Bearing cymbals, flutes, and thyrses, Wild from Naxian groves, or Zantê's Vineyards, sing delirious verses.

From Project Gutenberg

Charley brought me a branch of a Cassia with a thyrse of showy yellow blossoms, which he said he had plucked from a shrub about fifteen feet high.

From Project Gutenberg