tricennium

English

Etymology

From Latin trīcennium, from trīcennis (“30-year”) + -ium, from trīciēs (“30 times”) + annus (“year”) + -is (“forming compound adjectives”). Equivalent to tricennial +‎ -ium.

Noun

tricennium (plural tricennia or tricenniums)

1. (rare) A period of thirty years.
   • 1979, Thomas J. Dunlap, transl. Herwig Wolfram as History of the Goths, p. 298:

     As early as the second decade after his entry into Italy Theodoric made all illegal or irregular acquisitions that had taken place prior to this fixed date [28 August 489] subject to the thirty-year statue of limitation (tricennium).

   • 2021, Gavin Lucas, Making Time, page 48:

     With a site I have been working with in Iceland, I am dealing with 30-year time units or tricennia, and even if it is no Pompeii, there are still features that we know represented much shorter time scales—the construction of a fireplace that could have been accomplished in a day, the placing of a coin under a timber sill beam that only took a few seconds.

Derived terms

• tricennial

Related terms

• annum (1 year), biennium (2), triennium (3), quadrennium (4), quinquennium (5), sexennium (6), septennium (7), octennium (8), novennium (9), decennium (10), vicennium (20), centennium (100), quincentennium (500), millennium (1000), decamillennium (10,000), centimillennium (100,000), millionennium (1,000,000)

Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [triːˈkɛn.ni.ũː]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [triˈt͡ʃɛn.ni.um]

Etymology 1

From trīcennis +‎ -ium (forming abstract nouns).

Noun

trīcennium n (genitive trīcenniī or trīcennī); second declension

1. (Late Latin) tricennium, a thrity-year period
   • c. 430 CE – c. 489 CE, Sidonius Apollinaris, Letters VIII.VI.7:

     Per ipsum fere tempus, ut decemviraliter loquar, lex de praescriptione tricennii fuerat proquiritata, cuius peremptoriis abolita rubricis lis omnis in sextum tracta quinquennium terminabatur. hanc intra Gallias ante nescitam primus, quem loquimur, orator indidit prosecutionibus edidit tribunalibus prodidit partibus addidit titulis, frequente conventu raro sedente, paucis sententiis multis laudibus.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Declension

Second-declension noun (neuter).

	singular	plural
nominative	trīcennium	trīcennia
genitive	trīcenniī trīcennī1	trīcenniōrum
dative	trīcenniō	trīcenniīs
accusative	trīcennium	trīcennia
ablative	trīcenniō	trīcenniīs
vocative	trīcennium	trīcennia

¹Found in older Latin (until the Augustan Age).

Coordinate terms

• (2-year period): biennium
• (3-year period): triennium
• (4-year period): quadriennium
• (5-year period): quīnquennium
• (6-year period): sexennium
• (7-year period): septuennium
• (8-year period): octennium
• (9-year period): novennium
• (10-year period): decennium
• (20-year period): vīcennium

Descendants

• English: tricennium

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Adjective

trīcennium

1. genitive masculine/feminine/neuter plural of trīcennis

References

• “tricennium”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “tricennium”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.