Also 8 triplit. [f. TRIPLE, after DOUBLET; cf. F. triplet (Littré).]
1. A set of three; three persons or things combined or united.
1733. Swift, Legion Club, 183. Such a triplet could you tell Where to find on this side hell?
1824. L. Murray, Eng. Gram. (ed. 5), I. 444. A very frequent succession of words and phrases, in couplets, or triplets, is also a great blemish in composition.
1851. Airy, Presid. Addr. Brit. Assoc., 43. Observing stations should be selected … in triplets: the three stations of each triplet having relation to the north boundary, the centre, and the south boundary of the shadow. The Russian Government has … actually equipped six triplets.
2. In various specific uses. a. Three successive lines of verse, esp. when rhyming together and of the same length.
1656. Earl Monm., trans. Boccalini’s Advts. fr. Parnass., II. xiv. (1674), 153. Berni, the Head of those Italian Poets, who have … written facetious things in Triplets.
1697. [see 3].
1751. Earl Orrery, Remarks Swift (1752), 188. One of his strictest rules in poetry was to avoid triplets.
1800. Malone, Life Dryden, 525. He sent a second messenger to the bookseller, with a very satirical triplet.
1862. Borrow, Wild Wales, lix. (1911), 311. He was a poet by nature, having a muse wonderfully glib at making triplets and quartets.
b. pl. Three children at a birth; sing. one of three at a birth.
1787. Garthshore, in Phil. Trans., LXXVII. 351. [Of] triplets, or three born at once, we find comparatively … few instances in … any … country.
1860. Tanner, Signs Pregnancy (1862), 110. The presence of three distinct [uterine] double sounds, not isochronous, warrants the diagnosis of triplets.
1905. Daily News, 25 Jan., 9. His mother said she … had two other boys the same age … The troublesome triplet was remanded.
c. Mus. A group of three notes to be played in the time of two of the same time-value.
1801. in Busby, Dict. Mus.
1848. Rimbault, Piano, 23. When three notes of one sort are joined together, and have the figure 3 placed over or under them, they are called a Triplet,… and are to be performed in the time of two only of the same kind.
1862. Ernst Pauer, Programme, 8 March. With triplets continually increasing in rapidity.
transf. 1860. Ruskin, Unto this Last, iv. & 82. Triplets of birds and murmur and chirp of insects.
d. Arch. A window of three lights.
1849. Freeman, Archit., II. I. vii. 180. The genuine triplet with the higher central light seems hardly to be found in Italy.
1868. Daily News, 22 July. A window in the Abbey Church, consisting of a triplet of lancets at the west end of the nave.
e. A combination of three plano-convex lenses in a microscope, etc.; also, a microscope having three lenses.
1837. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 7), XV. 36. Sir David Brewster has made triplets in which two of the lenses are fluids and the third a solid.
1867. [see 3].
1. A counterfeit jewel: see quot., and cf. DOUBLET sb. 5.
1877. [W. H. Thomson], Five Yrs.’ Penal Servitude, iv. 274. A triplet is made as follows:—Two colourless topazes are prepared for the back and the front. Between these is neatly placed a piece of blue glass, and the three are stuck together with Venice turpentine.
g. A tandem bicycle for three riders.
1894. Daily News, 3 Sept., 3/3. On a triplet, [they] started to create a record for their type of machine, and succeeded … in riding the fastest mile ever ridden at Herne-hill.
h. Geom. A system of three families of surfaces such that one of each family passes through each point of space.
1891. in Cent. Dict.
i. Naut. Three links between the cable and the anchor-ring.
1891. in Cent. Dict.
3. attrib. Triplet lily, the American genus Triteleia, N.O. Liliaceæ, having the parts of the flower regularly arranged in threes.
1697. Dryden, Æneid, Ded. fj. I frequently make use of Triplet Rhymes.
1867. J. Hogg, Microsc., I. i. 13. The first triplet achromatic object-glass.
1874. H. H. Cole, Catal. Ind. Art S. Kens. Mus., App. 287. This bas-relief represents a god with several triplet heads and a great number of hands.
1884. Miller, Plant-n., Triteleia, Triplet-Lily.
1892. Photogr. Ann., II. 548. Microscope and micro-polariscope, fitted with Mr. Hughes’s patent 5in. triplet condensers.
1900. Daily News, 21 April, 6/3. New amateur triplet records were established … from two miles up to 28 miles.
