Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- To do for the third time.
- In gunnery, to examine, as a piece of artillery, or the thickness of its metal, to test its strength. This is usually done with a pair of caliper compasses.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb Obs. & R. To do or perform for the third time.
- transitive verb (Gun.) To examine, as the thickness of the metal at the muzzle of a gun; or, in general, to examine the thickness of, as ordnance, in order to ascertain its strength.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb
Reduce by onethird ; especially,kill one third of (agroup ofpeople ). - verb rare, obsolete To do or perform for the third time.
- verb firearms To
examine , as thethickness of themetal at themuzzle of agun ; or, in general, to examine the thickness of, asordnance , in order to ascertain itsstrength .
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
From tertiāt-, the perfect passive participial stem of the Latin verb tertiō, from tertius ("third").
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Examples
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Our old author tells us that the people would 'leap from rock to rock, sometimes making ten Fathoms deep at one Leap, in this manner: First they _tertiate_ their Lances, which are about the bigness of a Half-Pike, and aim with the Point at any piece of a Rock upon which they intend to light, sometimes not half
To the Gold Coast for Gold A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Volume I Richard Francis Burton 1855
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