trice
noun
a very short time; an instant.
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triced.
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
My fingers could travel the distance in a trice.
From "Ella Enchanted" by Gail Carson Levine
“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
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)
I like not being triced up between two halbards.
From The Little Red Foot by Chambers, Robert W. (Robert William)
Will my dead wife's family be less bereaved because of two kegs of peef and three tins of biscuit, or Rosalie's family less disgraced because her uncle was triced through the streets like a big?
From Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas by Osbourne, Lloyd
A sail triced up was filled with water to serve as a bath.
From Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs A Tale of Land and Sea by Kingston, William Henry Giles
Now, as quickly, the two boat-tenders rowed back to the Drab, and the boats were triced up in a twinkling.
From The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless Or, the Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise by Hancock, H. Irving (Harrie Irving)
“I’ll rig up a whip from the foreyard and we can let down a hammock for ’em, tricing up one at a time.”
From The Ghost Ship A Mystery of the Sea by Austin, Henry
Thorogood reached the 6-inch battery breathless, and found the guns' crews busy tricing up their mess-tables overhead.
From The Long Trick by Bartimeus
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
“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
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.
