Bot. [An irregular repr. of Gr. θύια, more correctly θύα, name of an African tree (Thuja articulata Linn., now Callitris quadrivalvis), the source of the THYINE wood (Gr. ξύλον θύῖνον) of Rev. xviii. 12. See also THUJA.
Theophrastus H. Pl. 5. 3. 7 has θύον and θύα, rendered by Pliny N. H. 13. 16. 30 ‘thyon, ab aliis thya.’ Med.Gr. MSS. and early printed edd. gave the Gr. as θύιον, θυία, which Theodorus Gaza trans. Theophrastus, 1483, Latinized as tyium, thuia. Camerarius, 1577, has thya from Pliny and thuia after Gaza; he applies the name to the American Arbor Vitæ, Thuya occidentalis. Bauhin, 1671, has the barbarous form Thuya for Thuia or Thuja. Tournefort used Thya from Pliny, which was also preferred by Linnæus Philos. Bot. (1750), 175 ‘Thya, male Thuja et Thuya.’ L. had himself used Thuja (var. of Thuia) in 1737, and reverted to it in his definitive Sp. Pl. 1753; and this was generally followed by British botanists and horticulturists, and is still in popular English use. But French botanists continued to use Bauhin’s Thuya (Littré has ‘Thuia ou Thuya’), and this has been followed by Bentham and Hooker, and adopted at Kew as the generic name. (Sir W. T. Thiselton-Dyer.) The only defensible form etymologically is of course Thya.]
Name of a genus of coniferous trees, consisting of about ten species, of which the North American T. occidentalis and the Chinese T. orientalis are commonly cultivated under the name Arbor Vitæ. (The tree so called by the ancients is now known as Callitris.) Also attrib., as thuya-wood.
[1483. Gaza, trans. Theophr. H. Pl., F iiij. Tyium quod thuia ab aliis appellatur.
1671. Bauhin, Pinax, 488. Thuya Theophrasti. Arbor Vitæ, Bellonio; Thuia sive Thya, vulgo. Cam[erarius].
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Thya, a kind of wild Cypress-Tree, whose Wood is very sweet and lasting; the Life-Tree.]
1707. Mortimer, Husb. (1721), II. 60. Thuya, or Arbor vitæ, grows of Layers or Slips to a tall straight goodly Tree.
1770. J. R. Forster, trans. Kalm’s Trav. N. Amer. (1772), II. 315. All the posts which are driven into the ground are made of Thuya wood.
1836. H. Murray, etc., Hist. & Descr. Acc. China, I. i. 19. Richly clothed with trees, particularly, the tallow, the camphor, the thuya or arbor vitæ.
1903. F. Eden, Garden in Venice, iii. 17. A tiny square of garden, closed in with an unshapely hedge of thuya and euonymus.
