triliteral, a. (n.)
(traɪˈlɪtərəl)
[f. tri- + L. littera letter + -al1.]
Consisting of three letters.
| 1751 Wesley Wks. (1872) XIV. 150 A [Hebrew] Root is usually triliteral, like [pāﻋal]. 1869 Farrar Fam. Speech iii. (1873) 88 The root of the Semitic verb is always triliteral, or rather triconsonantic. 1884 H. D. Traill in Macm. Mag. Oct. 444/1 Ignoramus..may annoy him even more than the triliteral Saxon..‘ass’. |
B. n. A triliteral word or root.
| 1828 Webster, Triliteral, n., a word consisting of three letters. 1839 Pauli Analecta Hebraica v. 41 Consonants were added to the original bi-literal words, and thus tri⁓literals arose. 1896 W. H. Ward in Hilprecht Rec. Res. in Bible Lands 180 The proper names of persons and cities resist the attempt to reduce them to Semitic triliterals or to Aryan roots. |
Hence triˈliteralism, the use of triliteral roots, as in Semitic languages; triliteˈrality (cf. F. trilittéralité), triˈliteralness, triliteral character; triˈliterally adv.
| 1841 Fraser's Mag. XXIII. 484 May not this habit..account for the Hebrew triliteralism? 1864 Ann. Rep. Smithsonian Inst. 1863 109 Their [sc. the Semitic languages'] most fundamental peculiarity is the triliterality of their roots, every Semitic verbal root containing just three consonants. 1874 Sayce Compar. Philol. ii. 77 The Semitic languages..entirely..built upon the principle of triliteralism. 1875 Whitney Life Lang. xii. 248 The triliterality of the roots and their inflection by internal change. 1902 Griffith in Encycl. Brit. XXVII. 728/1 The triliterality of Old Egyptian. |