Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A metrical foot having three short or unstressed syllables.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In ancient prosody, a foot consisting of three short times or syllables, two of which belong to the thesis and one to the arsis, or vice versa.
  • noun Same as tribrachial.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Gr. & L. Pros.) A poetic foot of three short syllables, .

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A classical metrical foot having three short or unstressed syllables
  • noun A circular platform on three legs each having levelling screws; used to connect a theodolite to a tripod

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin tribrachys, from Greek tribrakhus : tri-, tri- + brakhus, short; see mregh-u- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Greek τρείς, three + βραχύς, short

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Examples

  • The two metals have a different coefficient of expansion, and while the feet fitted the tribrach at ordinary temperatures, they were quite loose at temperatures in the region of 20 degrees Fahr. below zero.

    South: the story of Shackleton’s last expedition 1914–1917 2006

  • Another point which appears worth mentioning is the following; The foot – screws were of brass, the tribrach, into which they fitted, was made of aluminium for the sake of lightness.

    South: the story of Shackleton’s last expedition 1914–1917 2006

  • Classical prosody distinguished several other feet, some of which are occasionally mentioned in treatises on English verse: amphibrach ◡ _ ◡, tribrach ◡ ◡ ◡, pyrrhic ◡ ◡, paeon _ ◡ ◡ ◡, choriamb _ ◡ ◡ _.

    The Principles of English Versification Paull Franklin Baum

  • Fanniae of our day to talk of varying the trochee with the iambus, or of resolving either into the tribrach.

    Famous Reviews R. Brimley Johnson 1899

  • But to go on from this, as Dr Guest and some of his followers have done, to the subjection of the whole invaluable vocabulary of classical prosody to a sort of _præmunire_, to hold up the hands in horror at the very name of a tribrach, and exhibit symptoms of catalepsy at the word catalectic -- to ransack the dictionary for unnatural words or uses of words like "catch," and "stop," and

    The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) George Saintsbury 1889

  • Juno, meantime, whose feelings were less affected, did not kneel at all; but, like a tribrach, amused herself with chasing a hare which just then crossed one of the forest ridings.

    The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg Thomas De Quincey 1822

  • a spondee from a tribrach they vapour about prosody, of which they know nothing, and imagine to be new what antedates the Upanishads.

    Shandygaff Christopher Morley 1923

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