word-forming element meaning "three, having three, once every three," from Latin tres (neuter tria) or Greek treis, trias "three" (see three).

word-forming element, Latin -plus "-fold." Watkins derives it from *-plo-, combining form of PIE root *pel- (2) "to fold" and makes it cognate with Old English -feald, Greek -paltos, -plos. But de Vaan connects it to PIE root *pele- (1) that yielded words meaning "much, many, more" and is the source of poly-.

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."

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

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.