Also 7 thirse. [a. Fr. thyrse (a. 1502 in Hatz.-Darm.), ad. L. thyrsus, a. Gr. θύρσος stalk or stem of a plant; the Bacchic staff: see THYRSUS.]
1. Gr. and Rom. Antiq. = THYRSUS 1.
1603. Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., IV. 712. There is a Thyrse or Javelot with tabours to be seene expresly printed aloft.
1710. W. King, Heathen Gods & Heroes, xxvii. (1722), 134. Their [the followers of Bacchus] Cloathing [was] only the Skins of Beasts, with Thyrses in their Hands.
1845. Longf., Drinking Song, iv. Fair Bacchantes, Bearing cymbals, flutes, and thyrses.
2. † a. A stem or shoot of a plant (= Gr. θύρσος, L. thyrsus). Obs. b. Bot. THYRSUS 2.
1658. Phillips, Thyrse, a stalk or stem of any herb.
1744. J. Wilson, Synopsis Brit. Plants, Bot. Dict., 14. Thyrsus, a Thyrse, differs from a spike, in having flowers or fruit set more thinly on it.
1846. Dana, Zooph., v. § 91 (1848), 93. The thyrse of lilac blossoms.
1848. Lindley, Introd. Bot. (ed. 4), I. 324. The Thyrse is an inflorescence at first centripetal, afterwards centrifugal.
1861. [see THYRSUS 2].
3. An ancient vessel resembling a pine-cone.
1876. R. M. Smith, Persian Art, 12. From their … resemblance … to pine cones they have been called thyrses, and are supposed to have been used for holding mercury.
4. Comb. as thyrse-bearing adj.; thyrse-flower, Lindley’s name for the genus Thyrsacanthus.
1866. Treas. Bot., 1150. Thyrseflower, Thyrsacanthus.
1869. Swinburne, Ess. & Stud. (1875), 207. No Bacchus … comes Here, nor mænads thyrse-bearing.
