It was discovered by C. H. F. Peters on 15 June 1866, and named after Thisbe, heroine of a Roman fable.

On 7 October 1981, asteroid 88 Thisbe was observed to occult the 9th-magnitude star SAO 187124 from 12 sites.

The timing of the different chords across the asteroid provided a diameter estimate of 232±12 km.

[11] Photometric observations of this asteroid during 1977 gave a light curve with a period of 6.0422 ± 0.006 hours and a brightness variation of 0.19 in magnitude.

[6] Thisbe has been perturbed by asteroid 7 Iris and in 2001 Michalak estimated it to have a mass of 15×1018 kg.