troika
English
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/54/PalekhTroikaWolves.jpg/220px-PalekhTroikaWolves.jpg)
Etymology
From Russian тро́йка (trójka, “a group of three”).
Pronunciation
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Noun
troika (plural troikas)
- A Russian carriage drawn by a team of three horses abreast.
- 1880, Constance Garnett, chapter VI, in The Brothers Karamazov, book XII, translation of original by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, page 787:
- A great writer of the last epoch, comparing Russia to a swift troika galloping to an unknown goal, exclaims 'Oh, troika, birdlike troika, who invented thee!' and adds, in proud ecstasy, that all the peoples of the world stand aside respectfully to make way for the recklessly galloping troika to pass.
- 1990, Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia, Oxford University Press, published 2001, →ISBN, page 367:
- Travelling part of the way by rail and the remainder by troika, he reached Orenburg shortly before Christmas.
- A party or group of three, especially a ruling council of three people in Russian contexts.
- 1981, Martin Cruz Smith, Gorky Park, Ballantine Books, published 2007, →ISBN, page 3:
- The investigator suspected the poor dead bastards were just a vodka troika that had cheerily frozen to death.
- 2006, Barney Hoskyns, Hotel California: The True-Life Adventures of Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, Mitchell, Taylor, Browne, Ronstadt, Geffen, the Eagles, and Their Many Friends, John Wiley & Sons, published 2006, →ISBN, page 265:
- “He said, 'Let me get the best people.' And that's what he did. He got John Kalodner and Gary Gersh and Tom Zutaut, and they became stars in their own right.” Over the ensuing decade, that troika of talent-finders would bring a host of multiplatinum artists—from Cher and Aerosmith to Guns N' Roses and Nirvana—to Geffen.
- 2013 January 11, Tom Shone, “Oscar nominations pull a surprise by showing some taste — but will it last?”, in The Guardian[2]:
- No longer is the best picture going to be a toss-up between that troika of national-historical heavies: Argo, Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty.
Synonyms
- (group of three): threesome, triad; see also Thesaurus:trio
- (council of three): See Thesaurus:government
Coordinate terms
- (council of three): See Thesaurus:government
Translations
carriage
|
group of three — see triumvirate
Portuguese
Noun
troika f (plural troikas)
- troika (Russian carriage)
Spanish
Noun
troika f (plural troikas)
Categories:
- English terms derived from Russian
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with quotations
- en:Forms of government
- en:Russia
- en:Three
- Portuguese lemmas
- Portuguese nouns
- Portuguese countable nouns
- Portuguese terms spelled with K
- Portuguese feminine nouns
- Spanish lemmas
- Spanish nouns
- Spanish countable nouns
- Spanish terms spelled with K
- Spanish feminine nouns