Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A monster having three feet.

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

  • noun obsolete, rare A Bachelor of Arts appointed to make satirical strictures in humorous dispute with the candidates at a degree-awarding ceremony; tripos, prævaricator.
  • noun obsolete, rare A vessel (usually a pot or cauldron) resting on three legs, often given as an ornament, a prize, or as an offering at a shrine to a god or oracle; often specifically, that such vessel upon which the priestess sat to deliver her oracles at the shrine to Apollo at Delphi; tripod.
  • noun zoology The hindmost Weberian ossicle of the Weberian apparatus, touching the anterior wall of the swimbladder and connected by a dense, elongate ligament to the intercalarium.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the Latin tripūs and its etymon the Ancient Greek τρίπους (tripous); compare tripod. In the sense associated with Cambridge University, the Tripus is named after the three-legged stool on which he sat during the degree-awarding ceremony.

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