a. Requiring three men; managed, worked, or performed by three men; esp. in three-man(’s) song, glee (also three men’s song), a convivial part-song for three men; a trio for male voices. (Corrupted to freeman’s song: see FREEMAN 4.)

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c. 1425.  Cast. Persev., 2336, in Macro Plays, 147. xxxti thousende … Þat had leuere syttyn at þe ale, iij mens songys to syngyn lowde, Þanne to-ward þe chyrche for to crowde.

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c. 1440.  Promp. Parv., 492/2. Thre mannys songe, tricinnium.

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1597.  Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., I. ii. 255. If I do, fillop me with a three-man-Beetle. Ibid. (1611), Wint. T., IV. iii. 44. Three-man song-men, all, and very good ones.

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1600.  Heywood, 1st Pt. Edw. IV., Wks. 1874, I. 51. Weele haue a three-men song, to make our guests merry.

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1857.  Kingsley, Two Y. Ago, xxi. An old seventeenth-century ditty, of the days of ‘three-man glees.’ Ibid. (1865), Hereward, v.

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