Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In ancient prosody and rhetoric, a period consisting of three cola.
Wiktionary
- n. rhetoric A sentence with three clearly defined parts of equal length, usually independent clauses.
- n. The symbol ⁝, a colon with three dots instead of two.
Etymologies
- tri- + colon (Wiktionary)
Examples
“will [ing] nothing — want [ing] [nothing], and do [ing] nothing" (the sneer in the tricolon is almost audible).”
“In an age when parliamentary oratory is assumed be dead or moribund at best, it is a pleasure to record that this was one of the most hotly contested awards with lively debate on the merits of all sorts of rhetorical devices from the Ciceronian tricolon to the good old cheap shot.”
“The emotional height of the tricolon, where Ovid describes poetic inspiration, gives way to a comparatively prosaic distich where he explains that the conditions necessary for inspiration do not exist at”
“= The use of the third person adds to the emotive power of the tricolon 'ager ... hirundo ...”
“zone_info": "huffpost. politics/blog; politics = 1; nickname = jerry-weissman; entry_id = 161354; alliteration = 1; anaphora = 1; barack-obama = 1; fred-astaire = 1; ginger-rogers = 1; inaugural-addresss = 1; michiko-kakutani = 1; quotations = 1; swing-time = 1; tricolon = 1",”
“= 9-10 = form a tricolon, where each phrase represents the same action in progressively more specific terms: (1) 'dissimulas etiam' (2) 'nec me uis nosse uideri' (3) 'quisque sit audito nomine Naso rogas'.”
“HPConfig. blog_id = 0; var ads_page_type = 'bpage'; var zone_info = "huffpost. politics/blog; politics = 1; nickname = jerry-weissman; entry_id = 161354; alliteration = 1; anaphora = 1; barack-obama = 1; fred-astaire = 1; ginger-rogers = 1; inaugural-addresss = 1; michiko-kakutani = 1; quotations = 1; swing-time = 1; tricolon = 1"; if (top!”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘tricolon’.
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Rhetorical Devices
trope, wellerism, antimetabole, syncope, open-list, accismus, abating, abbaser, abecedarian, abcisio, ablatio, abominatio and 425 more...
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Rhetoric: The Harlot of the Arts
Words to do with rhetoric--study of, history of, practice of, theory of
rhetoric, paralepsis, invention, arrangement, style, memory, delivery, copia, consubstantiation, trope, colon, tricolon and 56 more...
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Logodaedalus' Lexical Locutionary
Discombobulating the illiterate since the middle of the last century.
adiaphora, agitprop, alliteration, apophthegm, autarky, bête noire, bezoar, biorhythm, braggadocio, canaille, confabulate, confrère and 332 more...
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ktrey's wordlist
Words that I like.
Many may be lexicographically impotent due to a lack of citations and definition. Hopefully I'll be able to rectify this eventually.velleity, dispositive, bloviate, bibulous, fungible, concupiscence, avuncular, carnaptious, thrawn, hypocoristic, diegesis, lagniappe and 928 more...
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deidionysus's list
Words, words, words!
cartesian, shavian, dithyramb, dreadnaught, lea, adamantine, titanomachy, theomachy, aethereal, ambrosia, ambrosial, aether and 183 more...
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Words about words
Most of these describe word patterns or relationships between words.
panvocalic, palindrome, anagram, transposition, antigram, reversal, isogram, alternade, trinade, beheadment, decapitation, apheresis and 149 more...
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Rhetorical words
exhortation, tricolon, chiasmus, anaphora, apostrophe, prosopopoeia, polysyndeton, asyndeton, metonymy, apophasis, anastrophe, enthymeme and 19 more...
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Rhetoric
Rhetoric
enthymeme, metonymy, metaphor, kairos, palimpsest, tricolon, synecdoche, rhetorical situation, polysyndeton, caesura, invention
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Figures of Speech
allegory, alliteration, anaphora, aposiopesis, apostrophe, assonance, asyndeton, chiasmus, ecphrasis, ellipsis, enjambment, hendiadys and 18 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for tricolon.

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