Pl. thyrsi. [L., a. Gr. θύρσος: see THYRSE.)
1. Gr. and Rom. Antiq. A staff or spear tipped with an ornament like a pine-cone, and sometimes wreathed with ivy or vine branches; borne by Dionysus (Bacchus) and his votaries.
1591. L. Lloyd, Tripl. Triumphes, B iij b. Your Bacchus daunce is done,… Your sacred Thyrsus’s wonne.
a. 1661. Holyday, Juvenal (1673), 110/2. The Thyrsus was a dart or javelin wrapt-about with ivy.
1734. trans. Rollin’s Anc. Hist. (1827), I. 41. [They] carried a thyrsus in their hands, a kind of pike with ivy leaves twisted round it.
1856. Mrs. Browning, Aur. Leigh, II. 52. Ivy … as good to grow on graves As twist about a thyrsus.
2. Bot., etc. A form of inflorescence: † (a) a lax spike, as in some orchids (obs.); (b) a contracted kind of panicle, esp. one in which the primary branching is centripetal (racemose) and the secondary centrifugal (cymose), as in lilac and horsechestnut.
1704. J. Harris, Lex. Techn., I. Thyrsus, is a Word used by the Botanists, for the upright, and tapering Stalk: And ’tis often used for Spica, which is an Ear, or Blade of Corn.
1744. [see THYRSE 2].
1760. J. Lee, Introd. Bot., III. iv. (1765), 173 (tr. Linnæus). A Thyrsus, is a Panicle contracted into an ovate Form.
1861. Bentley, Man. Bot. (1870), 195. The Thyrsus or Thyrse is a kind of panicle in which the pedicels are generally very short.
1864. Lowell, Fireside Trav., 108. Hop-vines … hung their clustering thyrsi over the open windows.
3. Comb., as thyrsus-bearer, -staff.
1844. L. Schmitz, in Smith’s Dict. Grk. & Rom. Biog., I. 1048/2. Bacchantic women,… carrying in their hands thyrsus-staffs.
1853. Trench, Proverbs, vi. 134. The thyrsus-bearers are many, but the bacchants few.
