[ad. L. terniōn-em a company of three, a triad.]
1. A set of three (things or persons); a triad.
1587. Holinshed, Chron., III. 207/2. A quadrangle in geometrie compriseth in it a triangle, and a quaternion in arithmetike conteineth a ternion.
1600. Holland, Livy, XXV. v. 548. The Senate … agreed that there should bee chosen two Ternions of Triumvirs.
1652. Bp. Hall, Invis. World, I. § 7. Disposing them [angels] into Ternions of three general Hierarchies.
a. 1661. Fuller, Worthies, Surrey (1662), III. 83. That happy Ternion of Brothers, whereof two eminent Prelats, the third, Lord Mayor of London.
1820. Southey, Wesley, I. 56. When I have such a Ternion to prosecute that war.
2. A quire of three sheets, each folded in two.
1609. Skene’s Rep. Maj., H h iij b, note. All the letters … are Ternions, or thrie sheetes in one, except H h in the last Alphabet.
1886. Amer. Jrnl. Philol., April, 27. They say that a given manuscript is composed of quaternions and of ternions.
