[a. Gr. Θάλεια (‘luxuriant, blooming,’ f. θάλλειν to bloom).]
1. The eighth of the Muses, presiding over comedy and idyllic poetry; also, one of the three Graces, patroness of festive meetings.
1656. in Blount, Glossogr.
1650. Anne Bradstreet, Elegie on Sidney, 13, in Poems (1678), 203.
| Thalia and Melpomene say truth, | |
| (Witness Arcadia penned in his youth). |
1711. Shaftesb., Charac. (1737), I. 317. The Thalia’s, the Polyhymnia’s, the Terpsychore’s, the Euterpe’s willingly join their parts.
1799. Campbell, Pleas. Hope, II. 168. Turn to the gentler melodies that suit Thalia’s harp, or Pan’s Arcadian lute.
2. Bot. A genus of aquatic herbaceous plants, N.O. Marantaceæ, natives of tropical America.
1756. P. Browne, Jamaica (1789), 112.
1878. Darwin, in Life & Lett. (1887), III. 287. In Thalia cross-fertilization is ensured by the wonderful movement, if bees visit several flowers.
† 3. Zool. An old synonym of the genus SALPA 2.
1756. P. Browne, Jamaica (1789), 384. The Thalia, with a square erect crest…. The Thalia, with a rounded depressed crest.
1842. Brande, Dict. Sc., etc. Thalidans, Thalides..., the name of a tribe of Tunicaries, of which the genus Salpa or Thalia is the type.
b. A genus of coleopterous insects.
1838. F. W. Hope, Coleopterist’s Man., II. 70.
4. Astron. The twenty-third of the Asteroids.
