Obs. Forms: 4 tryste, 4–5 tryst, triste, 5 trest, treste, tryyst. [a. OF. triste (12th c. in Godef.); cf. TRISTRE: in med.L. trista, tristra. Derivation obscure; perh. the same word as prec.] An appointed station in hunting.
c. 1330. R. Brunne, Chron. Wace (Rolls), 858. To venerye he gaf his tent; An herde of hertes sone þey met, At a triste [v.r. at triste] to schete, Brutus was set.
14[?]. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 613/22. Statuncula, a tryst.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 503/1. Tryyst, merke, limes, C. F. meta.
1470–85. Malory, Arthur, XVIII. xxi. 764. They … coude wel kylle a dere bothe at the stalke & at the trest.
[1607. Cowell, Interpr., Tritis, alias Tristis, is an immunitie from that attendance, in the forest, whereby euery man dwelling in the forest, is tyed to be readie, houlding of a Greyhound, when the Lord of the Forest is disposed to chace.
1799. Sporting Mag., XIII. 321. The diversion named the Traist or Trista.
1882. J. F. S. Gordon, Hist. Moray, III. v. 102. He … sounded with his horn the death-note of many a deer in the trystas which he held with his nobles in the royal forests.]
b. gen. A station assigned; appointed place, rendezvous. Cf. TRYST sb. 4.
c. 1330. R. Brunne, Chron. (1810), 157. Acres þan is his [K. Richard’s] triste, opon þe Sarazin feendes, To venge Jhesu Criste þiderward he wendes. Ibid., 179. Þe Inglis at þer triste bifor þam bare alle doun, & R. als him liste þe way had redy roun.
Trist, sb.3: see TRIST a.2
