tierce
See also: tiercé
English
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a4/English_wine_cask_units.jpg/620px-English_wine_cask_units.jpg)
Etymology
From Old French tierce, from Latin tertia.
Pronunciation
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Noun
tierce (plural tierces)
- A cask whose content is one third of a pipe; that is, forty-two wine gallons; also, a liquid measure of forty-two wine, or thirty-five imperial, gallons.
- 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, chapter 22
- Have an eye to the molasses tierce, Mr. Stubb; it was a little leaky, I thought.
- 1882, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, p. 205:
- Again, by 28 Hen. VIII, cap. 14, it is re-enacted that the tun of wine should contain 252 gallons, a butt of Malmsey 126 gallons, a pipe 126 gallons, a tercian or puncheon 84 gallons, a hogshead 63 gallons, a tierce 41 gallons, a barrel 31.5 gallons, a rundlet 18.5 gallons.
- 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, chapter 22
- A cask larger than a barrel, and smaller than a hogshead or a puncheon, in which salt provisions, rice, etc., are packed for shipment.
- (music) The third tone of the scale. See mediant.
- (card games) A sequence of three playing cards of the same suit. Tierce of ace, king and queen is called tierce-major.
- (fencing) The third defensive position, with the sword hand held at waist height, and the tip of the sword at head height.
- 1837 Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History
- [W]e behold two men with lion-look, with alert attitude, side foremost, right foot advanced; flourishing and thrusting, stoccado and passado, in tierce and quart; intent to skewer one another.
- 1837 Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History
- (heraldry) An ordinary that covers the left or right third of the field of a shield or flag.
- (religion, Roman Catholicism) Synonym of terce: the third canonical hour or its service.
- (obsolete) One sixtieth of a second, i.e., the third in a series of fractional parts in a sexagesimal number system. (Also known as a third.)
Translations
unit of liquid measure
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Anagrams
French
Etymology
From Old French tierce, tiers, from Latin tertia.
Pronunciation
Adjective
tierce
Noun
tierce f (plural tierces)
Further reading
- “tierce”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Anagrams
Old French
Adjective
tierce m (oblique and nominative feminine singular tierce)
- Alternative form of tiers
- circa 1170, Chrétien de Troyes, Érec et Énide:
- La tierce oevre fu de musique
- The third work was of music
Usage notes
- Unlike french tierce, it is attested with masculine nouns as well as feminine ones.
Categories:
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Latin
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English 2-syllable words
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- en:Music
- en:Card games
- en:Fencing
- en:Heraldic charges
- en:Religion
- en:Roman Catholicism
- English terms with obsolete senses
- en:Three
- en:Units of measure
- French terms inherited from Old French
- French terms derived from Old French
- French terms derived from Latin
- French 1-syllable words
- French terms with IPA pronunciation
- French non-lemma forms
- French adjective forms
- French lemmas
- French nouns
- French countable nouns
- French feminine nouns
- fr:Music
- Old French lemmas
- Old French adjectives
- Old French terms with quotations