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
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
You saw the dancer, and then in a trice you heard the music; but seven years ago this aspect of Balanchine dancing had virtually slipped away.
From New York Times ● Jun. 25, 2015
He could skip through an enemy's legs and trip him up in a trice, while the man was still concentrating on Sigemund as his only opponent.
From "Beowulf: A New Telling" by Robert Nye
“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
Its name, on a life-buoy triced to the rusty netting between the rails, was the Olive Branch, but its port of registry had been painted out.
From The White Blackbird by Hudson Douglas
The cutter’s foresail had been triced up, and served as a partition.
From The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader And what befell their Passengers and Crews. by William Henry Giles Kingston
An’ so yeou hed a wisit frum Si an’ Ed, did yeou; an’ wall, what d’ye think o’ thet, gents, here’s yer birds all triced up, ready tew be transported to jail.
From The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol by Herbert Carter
The ports were triced up, and brilliant sunshine flooded the gundeck.
From A Lad of Grit A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea in Restoration Times by Percy F. (Percy Francis) Westerman
The leopard was quickly triced to a pole, and they were back in Kohima.
From The Three Sapphires by W. A. Fraser
Lanyards, chain pendents, runners and tackles for tricing up, and bars and keys for securing lower deck ports In place.
From Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. 1866. Fourth edition. by United States. Navy Dept. Bureau of Ordnance
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 William Henry Giles Kingston
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 Sir Edward Belcher
“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 Edward S. Hodgson
The work of tricing him up occupied the beach-combers throughout the entire day.
From Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris
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.
