θύρσος

Etymology

Probably an Anatolian loanword. Compare Luwian [script needed] (tuwarsa, “vine”).

Pronunciation

Noun

θῠ́ρσος • (thúrsos) m (genitive θῠ́ρσου); second declension

1. a wand wreathed in ivy and vine-leaves with a pine-cone at the top, carried by the devotees of Dionysus
2. the devotees themselves
3. Hesychius defines it as κλάδος (kládos, “stick, branch”), ῥάβδος (rhábdos, “stick, rod”)

Further reading

• θύρσος in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• θύρσος in Liddell & Scott (1889) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
• θύρσος in Bailly, Anatole (1935) Le Grand Bailly: Dictionnaire grec-français, Paris: Hachette
• Woodhouse, S. C. (1910) English–Greek Dictionary: A Vocabulary of the Attic Language‎, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited.
  • thyrsus idem, page 873.
• Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010) Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 10), with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden, Boston: Brill