Mythol. [a. ON. þórr :—þunroz thunder: see THURSDAY.] The proper name of the strongest and bravest of the Scandinavian deities, the god of thunder, whose weapon was a hammer; his belt doubled his strength; hence in allusive use.
a. 1020. Wulfstan, Hom., xlii. (21 a) Napier 197. Þór and Owðen, þe hæðene men herjað swiðe.
1605. Verstegan, Dec. Intell., 74. Description of the great Idol Thor.
1817. Byron, Beppo, lxi. Crush’d was Napoleon by the northern Thor, Who knock’d his army down with icy hammer.
1841. Emerson, Ess., Ser. I. ii. (1876), 63. Let us enter into the state of war, and wake Thor and Woden, courage and constancy, in our Saxon breasts.
1898. Daily News, 6 May, 8/1. The din of a thousand Thors at their forges, the hubbub of the workshop.
b. attrib., as Thor-hammerer; Thor-like adj.; Thor-barley (see quot. 1755).
1755. trans. Pontoppidan’s Nat. Hist. Norway, I. iv. § 5. 105. This barley … the peasants term Thor-barley, possibly from the opinion of the ancients, who … imagined this corn to be fit for the banquets of the gods.
1865. De Morgan, in Athenæum, 14 Oct., 729/2. The Thor-hammerer does nothing but grumble.
1866. M. C. Tyler, Glimpses Eng. (1898), 159. The splendor of his [John Bright’s] Thor-like eloquence.
18[?]. Charles Sangster, Rapids of the Cedars, 6, in Longf., Poems of Places (1876–79).
| How the strong surges strike the naked rocks | |
| With Thor-like force, with purpose mad and fell! |
