trichromatic, a.
(traɪkrəʊˈmætɪk)
[f. Gr. τρι- tri- + χρωµατικός chromatic; Gr. has τριχρώµατος.]
Having, showing, or pertaining to three colours; trichroic: spec. a. Optics. Having or relating to the three fundamental colour-sensations (red, green, violet) of normal vision. b. Applied to lithographic printing in three colours; also to a photographic process by which the natural colours are reproduced by super-position or combination of photographs taken in three different-coloured lights.
| 1891 in Cent. Dict. [in sense a]. 1896 C. G. Zander Photo-trichromatic Printing Pref., Trichromatic printing does not make the headway it deserves. Ibid. 36 The Young-Helmholtz theory of trichromatic vision. 1900 Westm. Gaz. 14 Nov. 2/1 ‘A Handbook of Photography in Colours’..by Messrs. Thomas Bolas, Alexander Tallent, and Edgar Senior. The curious will find every phase of trichromatic photography expounded. 1904 Daily News 17 Aug. 5 Trichromatic Toy-Books... I noticed the other day that a large toy-book..was done entirely by the three-colour process—literally three printings in all. |
So triˈchromatism, the quality of being trichromatic; spec. (a) = trichroism b; (b) combination of three different colours, as in painting or colour-photography; (c) = trichromasy; triˈchromatist, one who uses (only) three different colours or pigments.
| 1854 Blackw. Mag. LXXVI. 330 With the unsparing use of these three unmitigated colours only..decorators..should style themselves Trichromatists [not Polychromatists]. 1895 Funk's Stand. Dict., Trichromatism. 1910 M. Greenwood Physiol. Special Senses 239/1 (Index), Trichromatism. 1925 M. Collins Colour-Blindness i. 13 Nagel rejects the term colour-weakness as being too wide, and prefers the term anomalous trichromatism. 1946 [see protanomaly]. 1956 Jrnl. Optical Soc. Amer. XLVI. 1075/1 The commonest form of aberrant color vision, namely anomalous trichromatism. |