Forms: 1 Thila, 1, 4–5 Tyle, Tile, 7 Thyle, Tule, 6– Thule. [L. Thūlē (Thȳle) = Gr. Θούλη (Θύλη), proper name of unknown origin.] The ancient Greek and Latin name (first found in Polybius’s account of the voyage of Pytheas) for a land six days’ sail north of Britain, which he supposed to be the most northerly region in the world.
(Thule has been variously conjectured to be the Shetland Islands (so app. in Pliny and Tacitus), Iceland, the northern point of Denmark, or some point on the coast of Norway.
c. 888. K. Ælfred, Boeth., xxix. § 3. Oð ðæt iland þe we hatað Tyle. Ibid. (c. 893), Oros., I. i. § 27. Be westannorðan Ibernia is þæt ytemeste land þæt man hæt Thila.
a. 1000. Boeth. Metr., xvi. 15. An iʓlond … ꝥ is Tile haten.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Boeth., III. met. v. (Camb. MS.). Þe last Ile in þe see þat hyhte tyle [v.r. tile].
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), I. 325. Tyle is sixe dayes seillynge oute of Bretayne.
1598. Sylvester, Du Bartas, II. ii. IV. Columnes, 230. From Africa to Thule’s farthest Flood.
1613–6. W. Browne, Brit. Past., I. v. Monster-breeding Nyle Or through the North to the unpeopled Thyle.
1665. Sir T. Herbert, Trav. (1677), 2. The fortunate Islands … about which has been no small difference amongst Writers. Some placing them at the Azores … but the Commentator upon Horace near the Ultima Thule.
a. 1688. J. Wallace (title), An Essay Concerning the Thule of the Ancients.
1730–46. Thomson, Autumn, 864. Where, the Northern Ocean … Boils round the naked melancholy isles Of farthest Thule.
1847. Macaulay, in Trevelyan, Life (1876), II. 190. Where more than Thule’s winter barbs the breeze.
b. transf. As the type of the extreme limit of travel and discovery, chiefly (after Latin usage) in the phrase ultima Thule (farthest Thule); hence fig. the highest or uttermost point or degree attained or attainable, the acme, limit.
1771. Smollett, Humph. Cl., 3 Sept. I am now little short of the Ultima Thule, if this appellation properly belongs to the Orkneys or Hebrides.
1784. Edinburgh Advertiser, 4 May, 4/1. Mr. Fox will therefore take his seat immediately for the ultima Thule, in case a scrutiny for Westminster takes place; and if he shall finally prevail for Westminster, he will make his election for that city, and vacate his seat for the northern boroughs.
1784–5. Ann. Reg., II. 12/1. An unknown coast, which he [Cook] named Sandwich Land, the thule of the Southern hemisphere.
1828. Lights & Shades, II. 136. The caricature of a fop, the ultima Thule of extravagant frippery.
1878. Times, 10 May, 4/4. On April 8, after traversing another quartz country, the [Burton] expedition reached their Ultima Thule, the Wady Hamz.
