[As adj., ad. L. ternī three each. As sb., app. a. F. terne (15th c.).]
† A. adj. Bot. Arranged in threes; ternate.
1760. J. Lee, Introd. Bot., III. xxii. (1788), 242. The Peduncle … is said to be … Tern, or three from the same Axilla. Ibid., xxiii. 252. In respect to Opposition, opposite Leaves will sometimes become tern, quatern, or quine, growing by Threes, Fours, or Fives.
1828. in Webster.
B. sb. 1. A set of three; a trio, triplet. spec. † a. pl. [F. un terne, formerly ternes:—L. ternās.] A double three in dice-playing. (In quot. fig.) Obs. b. In a lottery, three winning numbers drawn together; a prize gained by such a drawing. c. A group of three stanzas.
13[?]. Coer de L., 2009. King Richard held a tronchon true … Ternes and quernes he gave him there.
1856. Mrs. Browning, Aur. Leigh, VII. 1247. She’d win a tern in Thursday’s lottery.
1869. Browning, Ring & Bk., XII. 158. But that he forbid The Lottery, why, Twelve were Tern Quatern!
1879. Furnivall, Chaucer’s Min. P., 419. This late Poem [Envoy to Scogan] composed of two Terns and an Envoy.
2. Math. A system of three pairs of conjugate triads of planes which together contain the twenty-seven straight lines lying in a cubic surface (i.e., one represented by an equation of the third degree).
1891. in Cent. Dict.
3. A three-masted schooner; a three-master. (Local, New Eng.) (Cent. Dict., 1891.)
