Forms: ? 1 trefet, 5 trevid, treued, trefet, -ett, 5–6 trevette, 5–9 trevet, 6 trevyt, treyvette, trivette, tryvette, 6–7 trevett, tryvet, trivett, 7 trifet, 7–9 trevit, (9 dial. trewit), 6– trivet. [Trefet occurs in a 12th-c. copy of a 10th-c. document (see below), otherwise it is not known till the 15th c.; it appears to be this word, and to represent L. triped-em, nom. tripēs three-footed, f. tri- three + pēs, ped- foot; cf. OF. trepied, tripié, trespieds, TRIPPET2.
11[?]. Rec. Gifts of Adelunold (963–84), in Birch, Cart. Sax., III. 367. vi bidenfate & ii cuflas & þry troʓas & lead & trefet & ix winterstellas & i fedelsswin.]
1. A three-footed stand or support: = TRIPOD A. 3, 4. Now rare exc. as in b.
1526. Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 37 b. And by sayenge of theyr pater noster make a treuet go rounde about the hous.
1594. Plat, Jewell-ho., II. 23. A large Balneo, wherein you may place sixe or eight glasse bodies … each of them fastened to a leaden trivet, yt they may stand steady in the water.
1653. H. More, Antid. Ath., II. ii. § 14 (1712), 47. Who perceiving that his Iron Trevet … had three Feet and could stand expected also that it should walk.
1782. Beckford, Italy, &c. (1834), I. v. 347. [They] shifted their trivets from cow to cow.
1888. Doughty, Arabia Deserta, II. 146. Abdullah made a trivet of reeds, and balancing thereupon his long matchlock … he fired.
b. spec. A stand for a pot, kettle, or other vessel placed over a fire for cooking or heating something: orig. and properly standing on three feet; now often with one or two vertical projections by which it may be secured on the top bar of a grate.
1416. Maldon, Essex, Court Rolls, Bundle 10 No. 3. Districtus est per 1 trevet, 1 patell. de eneo.
c. 1483. Caxton, Dialogues, 8/5. The ladle of the pot about the fyre; Treuet for to sette it on.
1561. Hollybush, Hom. Apoth., 36. Put the same into a newe pot, set it by the fyre vpon a treuet.
1683. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., Printing, xi. ¶ 23. This Caldron is set upon a good strong Iron Trevet.
1755. Hales, in Phil. Trans., XLIX. 342. In Devonshire, they set the pans of milk on trivets, making fires under them, to give the milk … a scalding.
1838. Dickens, O. Twist, xii. He sat over the fire with a saveloy and a small loaf in his left hand … and a pewter pot on the trivet.
1875. M. Collins, Sweet & Twenty, i. xviii. A defiant kettle sang upon a trivet.
c. Her. A bearing representing the three-footed stand used in cooking, usually as viewed from above, the three feet being shown around the edge.
a. 1500. in Baring-Gould & Twigge’s West. Armory (1898), 3. Arg: a trivet sab.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. xiv. (Roxb.), 7/2. He beareth Argent, a three square Trevett, sable.
† d. pl. dialectal (trewets, truets): see quot.
1674. Ray, S. & E. C. Words, 77. Trewets or Truets, Pattens for Women, Suff.
e. Applied allusively to prehistoric stone structures. (See also quot. 1892 in 4.)
1596. Spenser, State Irel., Wks. (Globe), 643/1. These … greate stones … which some vaynlye term the old Gyaunts Trivetts.
† 2. A three-footed vessel, as a pot, cauldron, etc.; chiefly Antiq. = TRIPOD A. 1. Obs.
1547–64. Bauldwin, Mor. Philos. (Palfr.), 10. Certaine fishers found a golden tresle or triuet.
1612. North’s Plutarch, 1231. Pausanias … offered a triuet of gold vnto the temple of Delphes.
1676. Hobbes, Iliad, IX. 118. Seven fire new Trevets.
† b. = TRIPOD A. 2. Obs.
1577–87. Holinshed, Chron., III. 1238/1. Who suppose euerie blast of their mouth to come foorth of Trophonius den, and that they spake from the triuet.
a. 1641. Bp. Mountagu, Acts & Mon., iii. (1642), 205. Shee [Curana Sibylla] composed her selfe upon a golden Trifet, and … uttered what by Inspiration was suggested to her.
3. Phr. As right as a trivet, thoroughly or perfectly right (in reference to a trivet’s always standing firm on its three feet).
1824. Observer, 13 June, 4/5. Odds were laid that Langan was ‘as right as a trivot,’ and would fight within six months.
1835. Hood, Dead Robbery, x. ‘I’m right,’ thought Bunce, ‘as any trivet.’
1837. Dickens, Pickw., l. ‘I hope you are well, sir.’ ‘Right as a trivet, sir,’ replied Bob Sawyer.
1868. Helps, Realmah, ii. (1876), 24. All goes as right as a trivet.
4. attrib. Three-footed; having three feet, legs, or supports: = TRIPOD B. 1.
1481–90. Howard Househ. Bks. (Roxb.), 45. To Tomas pewterer for … a trefet vesel iiij.d.
1700. Dryden, Ovid’s Met., VIII. Baucis, 84. The Trivet-Table of a Foot was lame.
1892. H. Owen, in Owen’s Descr. Pembrokeshire, 254, note. [They call the stone Gromlegh … There are other stones … in the Countrey adioyneinge as Legh y tribedd neere Ricordstone …] ‘The trivet (or tripod) stone,’… so called because of its three supporters.
Hence Trivetwise adv., in the manner of a trivet.
1859. R. F. Burton, Centr. Afr., in Jrnl. Geog. Soc., XXIX. 418. The fireplaces are three stones or clods, placed trivetwise upon the ground, so that a draught may feed thee flame.
