rare. [f. as prec., after duality, plurality.]
† 1. The holding of three benefices at once. Obs.
a. 1529. Skelton, Col. Cloute, 564. Or tryalytes, And of tot quottes, They commune lyke sottes.
1536. Act 28 Hen. VIII., c. 16 § 4. Pluralities, unions, trialities, appropriacions … And other bulles, breves, and faculties.
1587. Harrison, England, II. ii. (1877), I. 63. So plentifullie gat he by his perquisits, as elections, procurations, appeales, preuentions, pluralities, tot quots. trialities [etc.].
1637. Bastwick, Litany, II. 9. The Pope selleth nonresidences, pluralityes, trialityes, totquots, the Prelats doe the same.
2. The condition or quality of being threefold.
1872. Doran, Mem. Gt. Towns, xiii. (1878), 294. Dr. Wigan … not only wrote on the Duality of the Mind, but on the Triality (if we may coin a word), the threefold excellence, of the Brighton atmosphere.
