triangular trade

American  

[trahy-ang-gyuh-ler treyd] / traɪˈæŋ gjə lər ˈtreɪd /

noun

1. a pattern of colonial commerce connecting three regions and crossing the Atlantic Ocean, specifically the transporting of enslaved Africans to the Americas, cotton and other raw materials from the Americas to Europe, and textiles and other manufactured goods from Europe to West Africa, or a similar repeating trade pattern transporting enslaved Africans to the West Indies and sugar or molasses from the West Indies to New England to be manufactured into rum, with liquor subsequently shipped and sold in West Africa.

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Etymology

Origin of triangular trade

First recorded in 1885–90 in the sense of ordinary commercial trade, not involving enslaved Africans; the current sense was first recorded in 1930–35

Example Sentences

You get three half cylinders, a triangular prism and a sphere, whose combined volume is 13⁄3πr3 + 2√ 3r3 ≈ 17.08r3.

From Scientific American • Jun. 6, 2023

We are resistant to change in food packaging, attached to our squeezy honey bear, Toblerone’s triangular prism, the resealable paperboard tube that houses Pringles’s neat stack of hyperbolic paraboloid chips.

From Washington Post • Jul. 9, 2019

These divisions open a new field in number lessons, while the introduction of the slanting line and triangular prism makes a decided advance in form and architectural possibilities.

From Froebel's Gifts by Wiggin, Kate Douglas Smith

Double internal reflection by a triangular prism would form a single coloured image on the parhelic circle at about 98� from the sun.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 8 "Haller, Albrecht" to "Harmonium" by Various

Thus you will have a hollow, triangular prism, the length of the piano, open at both ends.

From St. Nicholas v. 13 No. 9 July 1886 an Illustrated Magazine for Young Folks by Various