triple | Search Online Etymology Dictionary

20 entries found.

late 14c., from Medieval Latin triplare "to triple," from Latin triplus "threefold, triple" (see triple (adj.)). Related: Tripled; tripling.

triple (adj.)

early 15c., from Old French triple or directly from Latin triplus "threefold, triple," from tri- "three" (see tri-) + -plus "-fold" (see -plus). As a noun, early 15c., "a triple sum or quantity," from the adjective. The baseball sense of "a three-base hit" is attested from 1880. Related: Triply (adv.). Triple-decker is from 1940 of sandwiches and wedding cakes, 1942 of beds.

treble (adj.)

"three times, triple," c. 1300, from Old French treble (12c.), from Latin triplus "threefold" (see triple). Related: Trebly.

triplet (n.)

1650s, "three successive lines of poetry," from triple; perhaps patterned on couplet. Extended to a set of three of anything by 1733, and to three children at the same birth by 1787 (another word for this was trin, 1831, on the model of twin). Musical meaning "three notes played in the time of two" is from 1801.

*pel- (2)

Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to fold."

It forms all or part of: aneuploidy; decuple; fold (v.); -fold; furbelow; haplo-; hundredfold; manifold; multiple; octuple; polyploidy; -plus; quadruple; quintuple; sextuple; triple.

It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit putah "fold, pocket;" Albanian pale "fold;" Middle Irish alt "a joint;" Lithuanian pelti "to plait;" Old English faldan "to fold, wrap up, furl."

triplicate (adj.)

early 15c., "triple, threefold," from Latin triplicatus, past participle of triplicare "to triple," from tri- "three" (see tri-) + plicare "to fold" (from PIE root *plek- "to plait").

trine (adj.)

"threefold," late 14c., from Old French trine "triple, threefold" (13c.), from Latin trinus "threefold," from tres "three" (see three).

trilingual (adj.)

"involving three languages," 1834, from tri- + Latin lingua "language," literally "tongue" (from PIE root *dnghu- "tongue"). Latin trilinguis meant "triple-tongued," and was used of Cerberus.

Dunker (n.)

popular name of a German-American Anabaptist sect, 1756, from (Pennsylvania) German Tunker, from tunken, dunken "to dip, soak" (see dunk (v.)). So called because they practice adult baptism by triple immersion. The proper name is Brethren.

Trent

river in England, a Celtic name, perhaps "great wanderer," in reference to its flooding. The city in Italy (Italian Trento) is Roman Tridentum, in reference to the triple-peaked mountain nearby. The great ecumenical council there was held from 1543-63.

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