[L. tellūs.] In Roman mythology, the goddess of the earth; hence, the earth personified; the planet Earth, the terrestrial globe.
c. 1430. Lydg., Min. Poems (Percy Soc.), 24. Tellus and Ymo be dullid of theire chere.
1602. Shaks., Ham., III. ii. 166. Neptunes salt Wash and Tellus Orbed ground. Ibid. (1608), Per., IV. i. 14. I will rob Tellus of her weede.
1681. Cotton, Wond. Peake (ed. 4), 28. The Spring swell’d by some smoaking Shower, That teeming Clouds on Tellus surface poure.
1738. Gentl. Mag., VIII. 544/3. Reason, like Sol to Tellus kind, Ripens the products of the mind.
1818. Keats, Endymion, III. 71. Tellus feels her forehead’s cumbrous load.
1890. Laura E. Poor, Sanskrit, etc. (ed. 3), viii. 230. The act of sowing becomes the god Saturnus; field labor becomes the goddess Ops; the ground, the god Tellus.
