trice
noun
a very short time; an instant.
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tricing.
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
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 Douglas, Hudson
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
The boarding nettings were at once triced up, the small arms got from below, and the guns loaded.
From The Two Whalers Adventures in the Pacific by Kingston, William Henry Giles
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
The leopard was quickly triced to a pole, and they were back in Kohima.
From The Three Sapphires by Fraser, W. A.
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
If there are, we will reeve and bend the tricing lines at once, and see all clear for tricing up the nets.”
From A Middy in Command A Tale of the Slave Squadron by Hodgson, Edward S.
Everywhere they can be distinguished by their dress, by their enormous oiled sunshades, and by their habit of tricing their loads high up to the carrying pole.
From An Australian in China Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma by Morrison, George Ernest
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
“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
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.
