tergeminous

English

Etymology

From Latin tergeminus, from ter (“thrice”) + geminus (“doubled at birth, twin-born”). Compare trigeminous.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɛmɪnəs

Adjective

tergeminous (not comparable)

1. Threefold.
   • 1823, James Hogg, “Peril Second. Leasing. Circle II.”, in The Three Perils of Woman; or, Love, Leasing, and Jealousy. […], volume III, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, […], →OCLC, page 100:

     My servant-maid has discovered tergeminous proof of the perpetrator.

   • 1851, “Lines in commemoration of the Auld Brig”, in Competing and Other Poems on the Auld Brig, page 4:

     I've often viewed in early life's bright dream, Thy arch tergeminous which spanned the stream; Upon the rocks greywacke oft I've stood, And upward scanned thy classic pulchritude.

   • 1861 March, “Critical Notices of Works on India and the East”, in Calcutta Review, volume 36, page v:

     The reader will also observe that in the example just cited 'justice' is rendered by 'equality and justice;' on the same page he will find carelessness and inadvertency' where the original has only neglect; and so he will find throughout the book such geminous and even tergeminous renderings to the number of at least two hundred.

   • 1906, William Cowper Brann, Brann, the Iconoclast, page 451:

     Chappies like Junius Henri, whose sidewheel whiskers and tergeminous titles are giving them spinal curvature, may fancy hysterical maids; but a sure-enough American, competent to raise a crop of world-compellers all bearing his trade-mark, prefers a Grace Darling or a Molly Pitcher.