triplet
[trip-lit]
- one of three children or offspring born at the same birth.
- triplets, three offspring born at one birth.
- any group or combination of three.
- Prosody. three successive verses or lines, especially when rhyming and of the same length; a stanza of three lines.
- Also called tercet. Music. a group of three notes to be performed in the time of two ordinary notes of the same kind.
- an assembled imitation gem with three parts, the center one giving the color, the top and bottom, sometimes genuine, supplying the wearing qualities.
- Genetics. a sequence of three nucleotides; a codon in messenger RNA and an anticodon in transfer RNA.
- Optics. a compound lens in which three lenses are combined.
- triplets, (in some card games) three cards of the same denomination.
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Origin of triplet
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for triplet
Contemporary Examples
Triplet panda cubs born this past July were reunited with their mother, Juxiao, in a Chinese zoo this week.
‘Sexual’ Barbershop Quartet, a Panda Family Reunion, and More Viral VideosThe Daily Beast Video
December 14, 2014
Music aficionados recognize this rhythm as a triplet or “hemiola”: the playing of two different musical patterns simultaneously.
Historical Examples
This is a War Ballad, in triplet stanzas with 'duplication.'
Dr. Triplet's monument now stands in the place where this did.
Brief Lives (Vol. 2 of 2)John Aubrey
Dr. Triplet came to give his master a visit, and he whip't him.
Brief Lives (Vol. 1 of 2)John Aubrey
Hunt imitated Dryden in the use of both alexandrine and triplet.
English VerseRaymond MacDonald Alden, Ph.D.
A combination of two lenses is called a doublet—of three, a triplet.
A Treatise on Physiology and HygieneJoseph Chrisman Hutchison
triplet
- a group or set of three similar things
- one of three offspring born at one birth
- music a group of three notes played in a time value of two, four, etc
- chem a state of a molecule or free radical in which there are two unpaired electrons
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Word Origin
C17: from triple, on the model of doublet
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for triplet
n.
1650s, "three successive lines of poetry," from triple; perhaps patterned on doublet. Extended to a set of three of anything in 1733, and to three children at the same birth in 1787 (another word for this was trin, 1831, on the model of twin). Musical meaning "three notes played in the time of two" is from 1801.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
triplet
(trĭp′lĭt)- Any of three children delivered at the same birth.
- A set of three similar objects, such as a compound lens in a microscope formed of three planoconvex lenses.
- A unit of three successive nucleotides in a DNA or RNA molecule that codes for a specific amino acid; a codon or anticodon.
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The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
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