Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A staff tipped with a pine cone and twined with ivy, carried by Dionysus, Dionysian revelers, and satyrs.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun One of the most common attributes or emblems of Dionysus (Bacchus) and his thiasus and vo taries.
- noun Same as
thyrse , 2.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A staff entwined with ivy, and surmounted by a pine cone, or by a bunch of vine or ivy leaves with grapes or berries. It is an attribute of Bacchus, and of the satyrs and others engaging in Bacchic rites.
- noun (Bot.) A species of inflorescence; a dense panicle, as in the lilac and horse-chestnut.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
staff topped with a conical ornament, carried byBacchus or his followers. - noun botany A species of
inflorescence ; a densepanicle , as in thelilac andhorse-chestnut .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a dense flower cluster (as of the lilac or horse chestnut) in which the main axis is racemose and the branches are cymose
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The thyrsus was a long staff, carried by Bacchus, and by the Satyrs and Bacchanalians engaged in the worship of the God of the grape.
The Metamorphoses of Ovid Vol. I, Books I-VII 43 BC-18? Ovid 1847
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As she worshipped the god she typically held a thyrsus, a giant fennel staff topped with a pinecone.
The Spartacus War Barry Strauss 2009
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The Dionysian thyrsus, like the later withche's wand, was willow.
Helen of Troy Jan 2009
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As she worshipped the god she typically held a thyrsus, a giant fennel staff topped with a pinecone.
The Spartacus War Barry Strauss 2009
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He is often to be found on this blog, either riding the Behemouth with a cowboy whoop or following behind it on foot, having set it off on a rampage with a swipe of his sacred thyrsus across its arse.
An A-Z Of This Blog Hal Duncan 2007
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As she worshipped the god she typically held a thyrsus, a giant fennel staff topped with a pinecone.
The Spartacus War Barry Strauss 2009
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Satyrs often carry the thyrsus: the rod of Dionysus tipped with a pine cone.
Pan and Satyrs James Gurney 2009
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As she worshipped the god she typically held a thyrsus, a giant fennel staff topped with a pinecone.
The Spartacus War Barry Strauss 2009
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He is often to be found on this blog, either riding the Behemouth with a cowboy whoop or following behind it on foot, having set it off on a rampage with a swipe of his sacred thyrsus across its arse.
Archive 2007-12-01 Hal Duncan 2007
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Theban blood; with no wild waving of the thyrsus, clad in fawnskin thou dancest, but with chariots and bitted steeds wheelest thy charger strong of hoof.
The Phoenissae 2008
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