[perh. f. TRINE sb., conformed to TWIN.] pl. Three children or young born at one birth: = TRINE sb. 3. Also sing. one of such; also attrib. or as adj. Cf. THRIN sb.
1831. Blackw. Mag., XXIX. 998. The teeming matron is near her time, and from her bulk you may back her for trins.
1844. Stephens, Bk. Farm (1849), I. 597/2. In a small flock of 50 Leicester ewes, 48 of them had twins, and 2 trins.
1875. Furnivall, in Lovelich’s Grail, I. 291, note. Trins are always born: two males and one female. Ibid. (1887), in J. Lane’s Cont. Sqr.’s T., p. viii., note. Spenser … made the fay-born trin brethren, Priamond, Dyamond, and Triamond, fight Camballo … to see which of them could win Canace.
b. transf. (Min.) A compound crystal of three individuals, a trilling.
1868. Dana, Min. (ed. 5), 805. Tridymite,… in allusion to its compound forms of three individuals, or trins, from τρίδυμος.
