1. (Med.) A disease, especially an intermittent fever, which returns every third day, reckoning inclusively,
or in which the intermission lasts one day.
2. A liquid measure formerly used for wine, equal to seventy imperial, or eighty-four wine, gallons, being
one third of a tun.
Tertiary
(Ter"ti*a*ry) a. [L. tertiarius containing a third part, fr. tertius third: cf. F. tertiaire. See Tierce.]
1. Being of the third formation, order, or rank; third; as, a tertiary use of a word. Trench.
2. (Chem.) Possessing some quality in the third degree; having been subjected to the substitution of
three atoms or radicals; as, a tertiary alcohol, amine, or salt. Cf. Primary, and Secondary.
3. (Geol.) Later than, or subsequent to, the Secondary.
4. (Zoöl.) Growing on the innermost joint of a bird's wing; tertial; said of quills.
Tertiary age. (Geol.) See under Age, 8. Tertiary color, a color produced by the mixture of two
secondaries. "The so-called tertiary colors are citrine, russet, and olive." Fairholt. Tertiary period.
(Geol.) (a) The first period of the age of mammals, or of the Cenozoic era. (b) The rock formation of
that period; called also Tertiary formation. See the Chart of Geology. Tertiary syphilis (Med.),
the third and last stage of syphilis, in which it invades the bones and internal organs.
Tertiary
(Ter"ti*a*ry), n.; pl. Tertiaries
1. (R. C. Ch.) A member of the Third Order in any monastic system; as, the Franciscan tertiaries; the
Dominican tertiaries; the Carmelite tertiaries. See Third Order, under Third. Addis & Arnold.
2. (Geol.) The Tertiary era, period, or formation.
3. (Zoöl.) One of the quill feathers which are borne upon the basal joint of the wing of a bird. See Illust.
of Bird.
Tertiate
(Ter"ti*ate) v. t. [L. tertiatus, p. p. of tertiare to do for the third time, fr. tertius the third.]
1. To do or perform for the third time. [Obs. & R.] Johnson.
2. (Gun.) To examine, as the thickness of the metal at the muzzle of a gun; or, in general, to examine
the thickness of, as ordnance, in order to ascertain its strength.
Terutero
(||Ter`u*ter"o) n. [Probably so named from its city.] (Zoöl.) The South American lapwing (Vanellus
Cayennensis). Its wings are furnished with short spurs. Called also Cayenne lapwing.
Terza rima
(||Ter"za ri"ma) [It., a third or triple rhyme.] A peculiar and complicated system of versification,
borrowed by the early Italian poets from the Troubadours.
Terzetto
(||Ter*zet"to) n. [It., dim. of terzo the third, L. tertius. See Tierce.] (Mus.) A composition in
three voice parts; a vocal (rarely an instrumental) trio.
Tesselar
(Tes"sel*ar) a. [L. tessella a small square piece, a little cube, dim. of tessera a square piece
of stone, wood, etc., a die.] Formed of tesseræ, as a mosaic.
Tessellata
(||Tes`sel*la"ta) n. pl. [NL. See Tessellate.] (Zoöl.) A division of Crinoidea including numerous
fossil species in which the body is covered with tessellated plates.