thyrsus

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

noun a dense flower cluster (as of the lilac or horse chestnut) in which the main axis is racemose and the branches are cymose

Learned borrowing from Latin thyrsus, from Ancient Greek θύρσος (thúrsos). Doublet of thyrse, torse, and torso.

Terror shook the limbs of Bacchus, Paly grew his pimpled nose, And {229}already in his rearward Felt he Jove's tremendous toes; When a bright idea struck him-- "Dash my thyrsus! — The Book of Ballads: Eleventh Edition, 1870, Theodore, Sir Martin
The time of the Socratic man is past: crown yourselves with ivy, take in your hands the thyrsus, and do not marvel if tigers and panthers lie down fawning at your feet. — The Birth of Tragedy; or, Hellenism and Pessimism, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Or you, of more vigorous age and nearer to my own, ye youths; whom it was befitting to be brandishing arms, and not the thyrsus,[82] and to be covered with helmets, not green leaves? — The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Books I-VII, Ovid

thyrse

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