Meanings
- not comparableThreefold.
My servant-maid has discovered tergeminous proof of the perpetrator.
1823, James Hogg, “Peril Second. Leasing. Circle II.”, in The Three Perils of Woman; or, Love, Leasing, and Jealousy. […], volume III, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, […], →OCLC, page 1003 more examples
I've often viewed in early life's bright dream, Thy arch tergeminous which spanned the stream; Upon the rocks greywacke oft I've stood, And upward scanned thy classic pulchritude.
1851, “Lines in commemoration of the Auld Brig”, in Competing and Other Poems on the Auld Brig, page 4The reader will also observe that in the example just cited 'justice' is rendered by 'equality and justice;' on the same page he will find carelessness and inadvertency' where the original has only neglect; and so he will find throughout the book such geminous and even tergeminous renderings to the number of at least two hundred.
1861 March, “Critical Notices of Works on India and the East”, in Calcutta Review, volume 36, page vChappies like Junius Henri, whose sidewheel whiskers and tergeminous titles are giving them spinal curvature, may fancy hysterical maids; but a sure-enough American, competent to raise a crop of world-compellers all bearing his trade-mark, prefers a Grace Darling or a Molly Pitcher.
1906, William Cowper Brann, Brann, the Iconoclast, page 451
Origin
- Latintergeminus
- Englishtergeminous
From Latin tergeminus, from ter (“thrice”) + geminus (“doubled at birth, twin-born”). Compare trigeminous.
More words from Latin
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with tergeminous
All rhymes →Cite this entry
tergeminous. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tergeminous
“tergeminous.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tergeminous. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “tergeminous,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tergeminous.
Source: tergeminous on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.