Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Recurring every other day or, when considered inclusively, every third day: a tertian fever.
- n. Pathology A tertian fever, such as vivax malaria.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Occurring every second day: as, a tertian fever.
- n. A fever or other disease whose paroxysms return after a period of two days, or on the third day, reckoning both days of consecutive occurrence; an intermittent whose paroxysms occur after intervals of about forty-eight hours.
- n. In organ-building, a stop consisting of a tierce and a larigot combined.
- n. A measure of 84 gallons, the third part of a tun.
- n. A curve of the third order.
Wiktionary
- adj. Of a fever, characterised by paroxysms every third day.
- adj. Pertaining to the mean-tone temperament, in which major thirds are perfectly in tune.
- n. A tertian fever.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Occurring every third day.
- n. A disease, especially an intermittent fever, which returns every third day, reckoning inclusively, or in which the intermission lasts one day.
- n. A liquid measure formerly used for wine, equal to seventy imperial, or eighty-four wine, gallons, being one third of a tun.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. relating to symptoms (especially malarial fever) that appear every other day
- adj. of or relating to a tonal system based on major thirds
Etymologies
- Middle English terciane, tertian fever, from Latin (febris) tertiāna, (fever) of the third (day), from tertius, third; see trei- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“Cinchona bark had long been used by indigenous people as a remedy for fevers, and at the end of the seventeenth century, a British physician, in one of the earliest controlled studies of a drug, proved that its effect was unique to what was then known as tertian fever.”
“Classically, but infrequently observed, the attacks occur every second day with the "tertian" parasites (P. falciparum, P. vivax, and P. ovale) and every third day with the "quartan" parasite (P. malariae).”
“Saturday to Tuesday the symptoms continued ever worsening: a kind of tertian ague, "bastard tertian" as the old Doctors name it; for which it was ordered that his”
“Classically, but infrequently observed, the attacks occur every second day with the "tertian" parasites (”
“His adopted daughter Meg Giggs was interested in medicine and was known in the More family for having cured her father of tertian fever after reading the medical writings of Galen.”
“For example, the parasite causing benign tertian malaria, Plasmodium viva, has an incubation time of about ten to seventeen days; the resulting fever, which can be as high as 104 – 106 degrees Fahrenheit, lasts for two to six hours and recurs every third day.”
Pestilence and Headcolds: Encountering Illness in Colonial Mexico
“Marco Ortiz wrote to his father in 1569 that he had been very ill "with chills and double tertian fever (tercianas dobles) that lasted for six months, [after which] I was cured, God being served.”
Pestilence and Headcolds: Encountering Illness in Colonial Mexico
“That year, mosquitoes infected by feeding on a patient in Rome were sent to London where they fed on two volunteers, both of whom developed benign tertian malaria.”
“That very night, I tossed so violently in the throes of a dangerous chill that I was afraid I had contracted a tertian ague, and in my dreams I prayed for a medicine.”
“The quotidian, tertian, and quartan fevers, seem to me no less sacred and divine in their origin than this disease, although they are not reckoned so wonderful.”
Lists
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chained_bear usage note on quartan Mar 17, 2008