English

Alternative forms

• (with ού / ύ represented by u) Thule, Thulé, Thulê, Thulē, Thūlē, Tule [17^th C.]
• (with ού / ύ represented by y) Thyle [17^th C.], Thylé
• (with ού / ύ represented by ou) Thoule, Thoulê

Proper noun

Thule

1. The semi-legendary island of classical antiquity considered to represent the northernmost location in the inhabited world (the Ecumene).
   • 1844, Edgar Allan Poe, The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe II (1859), “Dream-Land”, page 41, first stanza, lines 5–6:

     I have reached these lands but newly // From an ultimate dim Thule.

   • 1969, V.E. Watts (translator), Boëthius (author), The Consolation of Philosophy, bk III, ch. v, page 89:

     For distant India tremble may // Beneath your mighty rule, // And Thulé⁵ bow beneath your sway // Far in the Northern sea, // But if to care and want you’re prey, // No king are you, but slave.

   • ibidem, footnote 5:

     5. To the Romans Thulé, variously identified as Iceland or Mainland in the Shetland Isles, marked the extreme northern limit of the known world, just as India here stands for the farthest east.

2. A nationalist and occultist group in Germany in the early twentieth century, which included some of the founding members of the Nazi Party.

Derived terms

• Thulean

Related terms

• ultima Thule

Pronunciation 2

Proper noun

Thule

1. The historical Eskimo culture extending from Alaska to Greenland between the 6th and 14th centuries.

Pronunciation 3

Proper noun

Thule

1. A settlement and airbase in northwestern Greenland established in 1910 by the Danish explorer Knud Rasmussen.

Translations

References

1. 1 2 Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. "Thule". Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1989.
2. ↑ Oxford Dictionaries. "ultima Thule". Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2015.
3. 1 2 3 Oxford Dictionaries. "Thule" (American). Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2015.
4. 1 2 Oxford Dictionaries. "Thule" (British). Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2015.