1751. Wesley, Wks. (1872), XIV. 150. A [Hebrew] Root is usually triliteral, like [ Hebrew] [pā sal].
1869. Farrar, Fam. Speech, iii. (1873), 88. The root of the Semitic verb is always triliteral, or rather triconsonantic.
1884. H. D. Traill, in Macm. Mag., Oct., 444/1. Ignoramus … may annoy him even more than the triliteral Saxon … ‘ass.’
B. sb. A triliteral word or root.
1828. Webster, Triliteral, sb., a word consisting of three letters.
1839. Pauli, Analecta Hebraica, v. 41. Consonants were added to the original bi-literal words, and thus triliterals arose.
1896. W. H. Ward, in Hilprecht, Rec. Res. in Bible Lands, 180. The proper names of persons and cities resist the attempt to reduce them to Semitic triliterals or to Aryan roots.
Hence Triliteralism, the use of triliteral roots, as in Semitic languages; Triliterality (cf. F. trilittéralité), Triliteralness, triliteral character; Triliterally adv.
1841. Fraser’s Mag., XXIII. 484. May not this habit … account for the Hebrew triliteralism?
1874. Sayce, Compar. Philol., ii. 77. The Semitic languages … entirely … built upon the principle of triliteralism.
1875. Whitney, Life Lang., xii. 248. The triliterality of the roots and their inflection by internal change.
1902. Griffith, in Encycl. Brit., XXVII. 723/1. The triliterality of Old Egyptian.
