[f. as prec. + -ISM, after dualism.]

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  1.  The doctrine of the threefold constitution of man, as body, soul, and spirit, or other three separate essences.

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1844.  Björnstjerna, Theogony of the Hindoos, 60, note. Lingam is also the symbol of the creating sun, and Yoni that of the receptive earth. This dualism became the mother of the trialism in one of the Buddhist sects, when, to the two foregoing principles of creation, the product (Buddha) was added.

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1893.  in Cent. Dict.

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  2.  A union of three states or countries.

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1903.  Westm. Gaz., 6 Jan., 2/1. The substitution of a Trialism, consisting of Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia,… for the present Dualism.

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1911.  Q. Rev., July, 260. There has been revived in Austria the idea of ‘trialism,’ that is to say, the amalgamation of all the Servo-Croatian countries of the Monarchy into a unit, which, with the German States and Hungary, would form a kind of federal empire.

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