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Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

tierce en · NOUN

Pronunciation

  • /ˈtɜːs/ (Received-Pronunciation)
  • (Southern-England) audio
  • /ˈtɪɚs/ (US)
  • (Southern-England) audio
  • /ˈtɪəs/ (Received-Pronunciation)

Etymology

From Old French tierce, from Latin tertia.

Meanings

  1. (obsolete) A third.
  2. Synonym of terce: the third canonical hour or its service.
  3. (historical) A cask of a certain size, or its volume used as a measure of capacity. Larger than a barrel but smaller than a hogshead.
    • Have an eye to the molasses tierce, Mr. Stubb; it was a little leaky, I thought. 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 22”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:
    • Again, by 28 Hen. VIII, cap. 14, it is re-enacted that the tun of wine should contain 252 gallons, a butt of Malmsey 126 gallons, a pipe 126 gallons, a tercian or puncheon 84 gallons, a hogshead 63 gallons, a tierce 41 gallons, a barrel 31.5 gallons, a rundlet 18.5 gallons. 1882, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, page 205:
    • He then gave me a large piece of silver coin, such as I never had seen or had before, and told me to get ready for the voyage, and he would credit me with a tierce of sugar, and another of rum […]. 1789, Olaudah Equiano, chapter 6, in The Interesting Narrative, volume I:
  4. The third tone of the scale. See mediant.
  5. A sequence of three playing cards of the same suit. Tierce of ace, king and queen is called tierce-major.
  6. The third defensive position, with the sword hand held at waist height, and the tip of the sword at head height.
    • [W]e behold two men with lion-look, with alert attitude, side foremost, right foot advanced; flourishing and thrusting, stoccado and passado, in tierce and quart; intent to skewer one another. 1837, Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, (please specify the book or page number):
  7. An ordinary that covers the left or right third of the field of a shield or flag.
  8. (obsolete) One sixtieth of a second, i.e., the third in a series of fractional parts in a sexagesimal number system. (Also known as a third.)

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
tierces Number=Plur lexicographic

Coordinates

tun · rundlet · barrel · pipe · tertian · puncheon · hogshead · butt

Hypernyms

cask

Relateds

tierce de Picardie · tierced

Synonyms

terce

Translations (1)

ca tercer (unit of liquid measure)