[f. TRI- + Gr. -αρχία government, or ad. Gr. τριαρχία triumvirate.]
1. The government or jurisdiction of a triarch; one of three divisions of a country ruled by triarchs.
1601. Holland, Pliny, V. xviii. I. 101. There lye betweene and about these citties, certaine Royalties called Triarchies, conLaining every one of them as much as an whole countrey.
2. Government by three rulers or powers jointly; three persons associated in government, a triumvirate. Cf. TETRARCHY 2.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Triarchie (triarchia), a government, where three are in like authority.
1658. in Phillips.
1859. Morn. Star, 28 April, 4/3. The Emperor of the French … proposed to the Queen that the pentarchy of the five Powers should be put an end to, and a triarchy of France, England, and Russia, be established in its stead.
1892. Nation (N. Y.), 20 Oct., 305/3. He proposed to establish a sort of triarchy, which was to consist of the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia … and a sovereign to be chosen periodically by and from the heads of the smaller principalities.
3. A group of three districts or divisions of a country each under its own ruler.
1660. Howell, Parly Beasts, 143. [The rational soul] dividing her Empire into a Triarchy,… governs by three Viceroys, the three Faculties.
1799. S. Turner, Anglo-Sax., I. II. x. 355. The island, though nominally under an hexarchy, was fast verging into a triarchy.
1888. Voice (N. Y.), 27 Dec. Three ambitious little kingdoms … Greece, Servia and Bulgaria. This triarchy cannot long endure; one must take the lead, with the prospect of absorbing the others.
