thyrsus

American  

[thur-suhs] / ˈθɜr səs /

noun

thyrsi plural

1. Botany. a thyrse.

2. Greek Antiquity. a staff tipped with a pine cone and sometimes twined with ivy and vine branches, borne by Dionysus and his votaries.

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thyrsus British  

/ ˈθɜːsəs /

noun

1. Greek myth a staff, usually one tipped with a pine cone, borne by Dionysus (Bacchus) and his followers

2. a variant spelling of thyrse

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• thyrsi
  plural

Etymology

Origin of thyrsus

1585–95; < Latin < Greek thýrsos Bacchic staff, stem of plant

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

thyrsus thyrsi

In last year's district finals, Melody, a straight A student at Pittsburgh's Carrick Junior High, muffed thyrsus, placed second.

From Time Magazine Archive

A plant extends along part of another compartment, possibly allusive to their medical virtues; and, to show that Bacchus was not forgotten, beneath lies a thyrsus with a double head.

From Old and New London Volume I by Thornbury, Walter

I am intent on the subtle movements of my rod, round which my thoughts and fancies wind and blossom till they have made a thyrsus of it.

From Hypolympia Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy by Gosse, Edmund

A panther-skin was around the upper portion of his body, a purple apron about his loins, a thyrsus staff in his huge but loosely hanging right hand.

From The Scarlet Banner by Dahn, Felix

And upon a strange black altar, a tiny woman with silver hair and a long thyrsus in her right hand.

From Elegy by Beaumont, Charles

And of the pillars four were made to resemble palm-trees, and they had in the centre a representation of thyrsi.

From The Deipnosophists, or Banquet of the Learned of Athen?us by Athen?us

Also the border of vine-leaves and crossed thyrsi; though that, to be sure, is usual enough.

From The Westcotes by Quiller-Couch, Arthur Thomas, Sir

It traversed Thrace and Asia, reveling in company with four hundred male attendants, who were equipped with thyrsi and fawn-skins and did no harm.

From Dio's Rome, Volume 6 An Historical Narrative Originally Composed in Greek During The Reigns of Septimius Severus, Geta and Caracalla, Macrinus, Elagabalus And Alexander Severus by Foster, Herbert Baldwin

A pink house with green shutters, half-hidden amid the sombre foliage, appears at the end of an alley of lilacs, "which sway in the spring under the weight of their balmy thyrsi."

From Fabre, Poet of Science by Miall, Bernard

In a patch of rusty-gum forest we found Acacia equisetifolia, and the dwarf Grevillea of the upper Lynd in blossom; the thyrsi of scarlet flowers of the latter were particularly beautiful.

From Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia : from Moreton Bay to Port Essington, a distance of upwards of 3000 miles, during the years 1844-1845 by Leichhardt, Ludwig