Pl. thoes. [L. thōs, pl. thōes, a. Gr. θώς, pl. θῶ-ες, a beast of prey of the dog kind.] The Greek and Latin name of a beast of the canine group; probably a jackal of some species; but variously identified or imagined by 17th-c. translators. See also THOUS.
1601. Holland, Pliny, X. lxiii I. 303. Wolves, Panthers, and Thoes, kindle their young before they can see. Ibid., lxxiv. 308. The Thoes and the Lions doe foulely jarre and disagree.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1658), 581. The lesser kinde of Thoes are the best, for some make two kinde of Thoes, and some three…. We will therefore take it for confessed, that the Thoes is a beast engendered betwixt a Wolf and a Fox, whereof some are greater and some are smaller.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Thos,… a Lynx, a Creature resembling a Wolf, but spotted like a Leopard.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., Thos,… a name given to an animal of the wolf kind, but larger than the common wolf.
1839. C. H. Smith, Dogs, I. v. 207. It may be, that one of the smaller Thoes of Aristotle is the true Jackal.
