Dictionary

tricolon en · NOUN · etymology 1

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek τρικωλον (trikōlon), neuter of τρικωλος (trikōlos, “having three parts”). By surface analysis, tri- + colon.

Meanings

1. (rhetoric) A sentence with three clearly defined parts of equal length, usually independent clauses.
   • By my count, that’s three tricolons in just over 100 words. It’s almost impossible to make A.I. stop saying “It’s not X, it’s Y” — unless you tell it to write a story, in which case it’ll drop the format for a more literary “No X. No Y. Just Z.” 2025 December 3, Sam Kriss, “Why Does A.I. Write Like … That?”, in The New York Times Magazine, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 03 Dec 2025:

Forms

Deriveds

tricolon crescens · tricolon diminuens

Hypernyms

isocolon

Translations (1)

de Trikolon (sentence of three parts)

tricolon en · NOUN · etymology 2

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *tréyes Proto-Indo-European *tri- Proto-Italic *tri- Latin tri-der. English tri- English colon English tricolon From tri- + colon.

Meanings

1. The symbol ⟨⁝⟩, a colon with three dots instead of two.

Forms

Translations (1)

es tres puntos (Translations)