trice
noun
a very short time; an instant.
trice
1 American
[trahys]
/ traɪs /
noun
trice
2
American
[trahys]
/ traɪs /
verb (used with object)
Nautical.
triced,
tricing
-
to pull or haul with a rope.
-
to haul up and fasten with a rope (usually followed byup ).
-trice
3
American
trice
1
British
/ traɪs /
noun
trice
2
British
/ traɪs /
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of trice1
First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English tryse; probably special use of trise (unrecorded) “a pull, tug,” derivative of trisen, “to pull”; see trice 2
Origin of trice2
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English trisen, from Middle Dutch trīsen “to hoist,” derivative of trīse “pulley”
Origin of -trice3
< French or Italian -trice < Latin -trīcem, accusative of -trīx -trix
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
On 15 July 1965, NASA’s Mariner 4 probe sent back grainy images of Mars, revealing a forbidding surface that destroyed florid Victorian speculation in a trice.
From Nature ● Jan. 7, 2019
We’d hired someone to help us sort through our belongings—keep it, sell it, give it away—Patty could get rid of anything in a trice.
From Salon ● Sep. 23, 2018
In a trice she can shift registers, though, and her candor and keenness of eye translate surprisingly well to tenderness.
From New York Times ● Jan. 30, 2018
He was maybe three feet from the net, but somehow, in a trice, managed to extend his left arm sideways and tilt his racquet head down toward his thighs.
From The New Yorker ● Aug. 30, 2016
They could have showed us a thousand big, flat-faced men, and we would have known Mr. Kendall in a trice.
From "Beyond the Bright Sea" by Lauren Wolk
“Nowadays it often seems writing is nothing at all,” Duras recorded in it presciently, years before the internet made everyone a créateur or -trice.
From New York Times ● Nov. 27, 2022
I like not being triced up between two halbards.
From The Little Red Foot by Chambers, Robert W. (Robert William)
Then we triced it up, and felt that at last we were ready for whatever the fates—and the natives—might have in store for us.
From Turned Adrift by Hodgson, Edward S.
Meanwhile the divisions on deck had got hawsers over the launch amidships, the chains unbent, the anchors lashed down on the forecastle, and the quarter boats triced well inboard and secured with the davits.
From Captain Brand of the "Centipede" A Pirate of Eminence in the West Indies: His Love and Exploits, Together with Some Account of the Singular Manner by Which He Departed This Life by Wise, H. A. (Henry Augustus)
"That thundering cockroach-legged thief, that was copper-fastened with gold lace and brass buttons chock up to his ears, with a thundering great broadsword triced up to his larboard quarter and slung with brass chains."
From An Old Sailor's Yarns by Ames, N. (Nathaniel)
The lancha had vanished round the stern, the ladder was triced up, and the open cargo gangway several feet above the brine.
From For Jacinta by Bindloss, Harold
“Good!” said I. “Then let them be brought on deck at once, and see that all is ready for tricing them up, should those boats succeed in getting dangerously near to us.”
From A Middy in Command A Tale of the Slave Squadron by Hodgson, Edward S.
The work of tricing him up occupied the beach-combers throughout the entire day.
From Moran of the Lady Letty by Norris, Frank
Those used for the hammocks, or tricing up the bags between the beams on the lower-deck.
From The Sailor's Word-Book An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc. by Belcher, Edward, Sir
In a moment, cutting the tricing lines of her boarding nettings, they sprang up her side and threw themselves on the deck.
From True Blue by Kingston, William Henry Giles
Moran dragged the hammock back into the cabin, and, returning upon deck, helped Wilbur to cut away the last tricing tackle.
From Moran of the Lady Letty by Norris, Frank
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
