tierce

plural tierces

1. obsoleteA third.
2. CatholicismSynonym of terce: the third canonical hour or its service.

   Synonyms: terce

3. historicalA cask of a certain size, or its volume used as a measure of capacity. Larger than a barrel but smaller than a hogshead.

   Have an eye to the molasses tierce, Mr. Stubb; it was a little leaky, I thought.

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 22”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC

   2 more examples

   He then gave me a large piece of silver coin, such as I never had seen or had before, and told me to get ready for the voyage, and he would credit me with a tierce of sugar, and another of rum […].

   1789, Olaudah Equiano, chapter 6, in The Interesting Narrative, volume I

   Again, by 28 Hen. VIII, cap. 14, it is re-enacted that the tun of wine should contain 252 gallons, a butt of Malmsey 126 gallons, a pipe 126 gallons, a tercian or puncheon 84 gallons, a hogshead 63 gallons, a tierce 41 gallons, a barrel 31.5 gallons, a rundlet 18.5 gallons.

   1882, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, page 205

4. entertainmentThe third tone of the scale. See mediant.
5. card gamesA sequence of three playing cards of the same suit. Tierce of ace, king and queen is called tierce-major.
6. fencingThe third defensive position, with the sword hand held at waist height, and the tip of the sword at head height.

   [W]e behold two men with lion-look, with alert attitude, side foremost, right foot advanced; flourishing and thrusting, stoccado and passado, in tierce and quart; intent to skewer one another.

   1837, Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, (please specify the book or page number)

7. governmentAn ordinary that covers the left or right third of the field of a shield or flag.
8. obsoleteOne sixtieth of a second, i.e., the third in a series of fractional parts in a sexagesimal number system. (Also known as a third.)

plural Tierces

1. A surname from French.