Word.ws English Dictionary

thurse

thurse noun: a giant; a gigantic spectre; an apparition.

Noun

thurse (plural thurses)

  1. (dialectal) A giant; a gigantic spectre; an apparition.
    • And yet he was also, though many generations separated them, distant cousin to the shining eoten-maid Geard, whom the god Frea Ing had seen from afar and wedded; and to Scatha, the fair daughter of the old thurse Theasa, who had claimed a husband from among the gods as weregild for her father's...2010, Stephan Grundy, Beowulf (Fiction), iUniverse, →ISBN, page 33

Forms of thurse

pluralthurses
alternative formthrush
alternative formthrust

Origin of thurse

From Middle English thurs, thurse, thursse, thyrce, thirs, from Old English þyrs (“giant, enchanter, demon, wizard”), from Proto-West Germanic *þuris, from Proto-Germanic *þurisaz (“giant, name of the Þ-rune”), from Proto-Indo-European *tur-, *twer- (“to rotate, twirl, swirl, move”). Cognate with German Turse (“giant”), Danish tosse (“a fool, buffoon”), Norwegian tuss, tusse, tust (“goblin, kobold, elf, a dull fellow”), Icelandic þurs (“giant”).

Words that rhyme with thurse

36 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about thurse

What does thurse mean?
Thurse means a giant; a gigantic spectre; an apparition.
What part of speech is thurse?
Thurse is a noun.
What is the plural of thurse?
The plural of thurse is thurses.

Words near thurse in the dictionary

  1. Thursday Island
  2. Thursday of Mysteries
  3. Thursdayish
  4. Thursdayness
  5. Thursdays
  6. thurse
  7. thurses
  8. Thursford
  9. Thursnight
  10. Thursnights
  11. Thurso

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: thurse (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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