Tsuwm's wwftd is "thyrsus" I found a paragraph on Internet with some additional information.


the worthless word for the day is: thyrsus

a staff tipped with a pine cone and twined with ivy,
carried by Bacchus, Dionysian revelers and satyrs

In my hand I bear the thyrsus, tipped with fragrant cones of pine.
-Longellow

[thanx to Fred]

-tsuwm http://members.aol.com/tsuwm/


THYRSUS (quvrsoV), a pole carried by Dionysus, and by Satyrs,
Maenades, and others who engaged in Bacchic festivities and rites (Athen.
xiv. 631, a; Vell. Pat. ii.82). [DIONYSIA, p411a] It was sometimes
terminated by the apple of the pine, or fir-cone (kwnofovroV, Brunck, Anal.
i.421), that tree (peuvkh) being dedicated to Dionysus in consequence of the
use of the turpentine which flowed from it, and also of its cones, in making
wine (Walpole, Mem. on Eur. and As. Turkey, p235). The monuments of
ancient art, however, most commonly exhibit instead of the pine-apple a
bunch of vine or ivy-leaves (Ovid. Met. xi.27, 28; Propert. iii.3.35) with
grapes or berries, arranged into the form of a cone. The following
woodcut, taken from a marble ornament (Mon. Matth. ii. tab.86), shows
the head of a thyrsus composed of the leaves and berries of the ivy, and
surrounded by acanthus-leaves. Very frequently also a white fillet was tied
to the pole just below the head, in the manner represented in the woodcut
on p136b, where each of the figures holds a thyrsus in her hand. See also
the woodcuts to FUNAMBULUS and VANNUS (Statius, Theb. vii.654).
[INSTITA.] The fabulous history of Bacchus relates that he converted the
thyrsi carried by himself and his followers into dangerous weapons, by
concealing an iron point in the head of leaves (Diod. iii.64, iv.4; Macrob.
Sat. i.19). Hence his thyrsus is called "a spear enveloped in vine-leaves"
(Ovid. Met. iii.667), and its point was thought to incite madness (Hor.
Carm. ii.19.8; Ovid. Amor. iii.1.23, iii.15.17, Trist. iv.1.43; Brunck, Anal.
iii.202; Orph. Hymn. xlv.5, 1.8).