a. (sb.) Obs. [ad. L. trisulc-us three-cleft, f. tri-, TRI- + sulcus furrow. Cf. F. trisulce (trisulque, 16th c. in Godef., Compl.).] Three-cleft, three-forked, trifurcate: esp. as an epithet of the lightning or thunderbolt, after L. trisulcum fulmen (Varro), Jovis telum trisulcum (Ovid), etc.
1609. Heywood, Rape Lucrece, I. ii. That hand That flings the trisulke thunder. Ibid. (1611), Gold. Age, V. i. Jupiter … Who thunder and the trisulke lightning beares.
1650. Bulwer, Anthropomet., xiv. 142. The Tongue of man is not double, or trisulke, or bisulke, as in some creatures.
1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, II. xxxii. Jupiter confound me with his trisulk lightning if I lie!
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Trisulk (trisulcus), having three edges, or three furrows.
1658. in Phillips.
B. ellipt. as sb. A thunderbolt.
1637. Heywood, Dial., iv. Wks. 1874, VI. 160. Hand once againe thy Trisulk, and retire To Oeta, and there kindle’t with new fire.
1638. Sir T. Herbert, Trav. (ed. 2), 239. They … never … looke upon him, least the fulgor of his aspect might peradventure prove no lesse formidable than the Trisulk of Iupiter.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., II. vi. 100. If we consider the threefold effect of Jupiters Trisulk, to burn, discusse and terebrate.
