triad
Part of speech: noun
Morphological type: derivation
Topics: business
electrical-engineering
electricity
electromagnetism
electronics
energy
engineering
entertainment
lifestyle
music
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
physics
Etymology: PIE word
 *tréyes
From Latin triad-, stem of trias (“three, triad”), from Ancient Greek τριάς (triás). By surface analysis, tri- + -ad.
Sense 3 (“branch of a Chinese underground criminal society”) is due to the word being applied by the British authorities to underground society in Hong Kong based on the geometry of the Chinese character, derived from a name used by some of those societies, 三合會 /三合会 (sānhéhuì, “Three Harmonies Society”), referring to the union between heaven, earth, and humanity.
Inflected forms:
form: triads
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: A grouping of three.
pos: noun
examples: Later artworks showed many animals and gods, some of which were clearly identified with heavenly body. They often included the symbolic triad of Sun, Moon, and Venus.
There are, says the Irish triad, 'three fewnesses that are better than plenty: a fewness of fine words; a fewness of cows on grass; a fewness of good friends around good ale'. As an Ulsterman I would agree.
gloss: A grouping of three.
pos: noun
gloss: A word of three syllables.
pos: noun
examples: In his general deportment he was pompous and important, affecting a species of florid elocution, which often became ridiculous from his misarranging the triads and quaternions with which he loaded his sentences.
gloss: A branch of a Chinese underground criminal society, mostly based in Hong Kong.
pos: noun
examples: The point — and the symbolism — was that so long as the informer kept his mouth shut he was alive. Harry had seen the result of zjuk carried out by the Tapei Triad on a poor jerk they found in a back street of Tan-shui. They had used broad nail heads that didn’t make such big holes on their way in. When the paramedics came and pulled the brick off the dead man, the face came with it.
gloss: On a CRT display, a group of three neighbouring phosphor dots, coloured green, red, and blue.
pos: noun
gloss: A chord consisting of a root tone, the tone two degrees higher, and the tone four degrees higher in a given scale OR any chord with three notes.
pos: noun
Related words: mafia
tong
yakuza
Derived words: augmented triad
Beck's cognitive triad
Beck's triad
Charcot's cholangitis triad
Charcot's neurologic triad
Charcot's triad
Currarino triad
dark triad
diminished triad
iron triad
Macdonald triad
major triad
Mediterranean triad
Meltzer's triad
minor triad
Murphy's triad
nuclear triad
Osler's triad
perfect triad
portal triad
trauma triad of death
triaded
triadic
triadism
triadist
unhappy triad
Virchow's triad
V triad
Translations:
lang: Bulgarian
word: тройка
roman: trojka
lang: Czech
word: triáda
lang: Esperanto
word: triopo
lang: Finnish
word: kolmikko
lang: French
word: triade
lang: French
word: trio
lang: Galician
word: tríade
lang: German
word: Triade
lang: Greek
word: τριάδα
roman: triáda
lang: Ancient Greek
word: τριάς
roman: triás
lang: Italian
word: triade
lang: Norwegian
word: trio
lang: Norwegian
word: triade
lang: Occitan
word: triada
lang: Russian
word: триа́да
roman: triáda
lang: Spanish
word: tríada
lang: Spanish
word: triada
lang: Spanish
word: tríade
lang: Swedish
word: trio
lang: Swedish
word: triad
lang: Turkish
word: üçlü