Gr. Antiq. [ad. Gr. θρᾱνίτης, f. θρᾶνος bench.] In the ancient trireme, a rower in one of the tiers, as generally supposed, the uppermost tier, which had the longest oars and hardest work; but the actual arrangement is disputed. Also attrib.
a 1703. Hooke, Lect Nav. & Astron., Post. Wks. 1705, 572. [In Biremes] the Thranites Oar usually lay at the top in a half round Notch, and in the inside was tied down with a Strap.
1842. Brande, Dict. Sc., etc., Thranite, the uppermost (or, according to some arrangements of the classical galley, the foremost) of the three classes of rowers in an Athenian trireme.
1869. ‘Wat. Bradwood’ The O. V. H., xxx. Look at that tall, sloping-shouldered, brown-bearded thranite.
1894. Athenæum, 29 Sept., 426/3. If … the oarsmen sat in a rectangular gallery … it would seem to be impossible to have more oarsmen on the thranite bank than on the other banks.
1904. Kipling, Traffics & Discov., 38. The thranite now and the thalamite are [steam] pressures low and high.
Hence Thranitic a., of or pertaining to the thranites.
1886. Warre, in Encycl. Brit., XXI. 807. Supernumerary oars … probably slightly exceeding the thranitic oars in length. Ibid. About the level of the thranitic benches.
