[f. Gr. τρίχα triply + -τομία cutting: after DICHOTOMY.] Division into three; arrangement or classification in three divisions, classes, or categories.
1610. Healey, St. Aug. Citie of God, 303. This Trichotomy or triple division doth not contradict the other Dichotomy.
1734. J. Kirkby, trans. Barrow’s Math. Lect., viii. 119. His [Aristotle’s] trichotomy … into Hypotheses, Definitions, and Axioms.
1836–7. Sir W. Hamilton, Metaph., xli. (1870), II. 416. It remained … for Kant to establish … the decisive trichotomy of the mental powers.
1868. Contemp. Rev., VII. 598. Popular theology is rather founded on the dichotomy of man into body and soul, than on the Christian trichotomy of body, soul, and spirit.
