trichotomous en · ADJ
Etymology
From trichotomy + -ous. Modelled on dichotomous.
Meanings
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(not-comparable) Divided into three parts, or into threes; forking three ways.
a trichotomous stem
1793, Thomas Martyn, The Language of Botany:
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(not-comparable) Such that, for all x and y in X, and for a binary relation R, exactly one of xRy, yRx or x=y holds.
> is a trichotomous relation, while the relation "divides" over the natural numbers is not.