# tierce
## English
### Etymology

From Old French tierce, from Latin tertia.

### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈtɪəs/
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
* (US) IPA: /ˈtɪɚs/
* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈtɜːs/ (card)
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Rhymes: -ɪə(ɹ)s, -ɜːs

### Noun

tierce (plural tierces)
* (obsolete) A third.
* (religion, Roman Catholicism) Synonym of terce: the third canonical hour or its service.
* (now historical) A cask of a certain size, or its volume used as a measure of capacity. Larger than a barrel but smaller than a hogshead.
    Hypernym: cask
    Coordinate terms: (in order of increasing volume) rundlet; barrel; hogshead; puncheon, tertian; pipe, butt; tun
** 1789, Olaudah Equiano, chapter 6, in The Interesting Narrative, volume I:He then gave me a large piece of silver coin, such as I never had seen or had before, and told me to get ready for the voyage, and he would credit me with a tierce of sugar, and another of rum […] .
** 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 22”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC: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, page 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.
* (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 […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, (please specify the book or page number):[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.
* (heraldry) An ordinary that covers the left or right third of the field of a shield or flag.
* (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.)

#### Related terms

* tierced
* tierce de Picardie

#### Translations
### Anagrams

* cerite, receit, recite

## French
### Etymology

Inherited from Old French tierce, tiers, from Latin tertia.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /tjɛʁs/
* Audio:(file)

### Adjective

tierce
* feminine singular of tiers

### Noun

tierce f (plural tierces)
* (music) third
* terce

### Further reading

* “tierce”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

### Anagrams

* écrite, étréci, récite, récité

## Old French
### Adjective

tierce m (oblique and nominative feminine singular tierce)
* Alternative form of tiers
** c. 1170, Chrétien de Troyes, Érec et Énide:La tierce oevre fu de musiqueThe third work was of music

#### Usage notes

* Unlike Modern French tierce, it is attested with masculine nouns as well as feminine ones.