a. Also 6–7 trinall, 7 trienall. [ad. late L. trīnāl-is (Adamnan), f. L. trīn-us, pl. trīnī three each, threefold: see -AL.]
1. Composed or consisting of three parts; threefold; triple; trinc.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., I. xii. 39. Singing before th’ etervall Majesty, In their trinall triplicities on hye.
1622. P. Hannay, Sonn., xx., in Poet. Wks. (1875), 250.
| O Trinall-one, one God and Persons three, | |
| Reforme my waies, and draw me vnto Thee. |
1629. Milton, Ode Nativity, 11. Wherwith he wont at Heav’ns high Councel-Table, To sit the midst of Trinal Unity.
a. 1843. Southey, in Fraser’s Mag. (1868), LXXVIII. 118. Tercets, or the trinal verse of Dante.
1871. Fraser, Life Berkeley, x. 396. The relations which contribute to form distance, and trinal extension.
1907. F. Harrison, Philos. Common Sense, p. xxviii. The synthesis is necessarily dual, or often trinal, in idea.
† 2. Astrol. = TRINE a. 2. Obs. rare–1.
1561. Eden, Arte Nauig., II. vii. 33. Trinall aspecte, is when betwene the planettes shal be foure signes, which are .120. degrees.
3. Gram. Applied to a ‘number’ or inflected form expressing three. Also absol. as sb.
1853. Proc. Philol. Soc. (1854), IV. 60. A trinal as well as a singular, a dual, and a plural number.
1881. Trans. Victoria Inst., 26. The form of the plural in some languages shows that it was originally a trinal.
Hence Trinality, the quality of being trinal.
1864. Shedd, Hist. Chr. Doctr., III. i. (1869), 243. Some of the theologies of pagan antiquity contain intimations of trinality in the Divine Being.
