Meanings
nountriphthong (plural triphthongs)
plural triphthongs
- A monosyllabic vowel combination usually involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another that passes over a third one.
In Lang Belta vowels usually appear preceding or following a consonant (see previous examples), and as of now no occurrence of diphthongs or triphthongs has been attested.
2021 October 5, Gessica Puccini, “Lang Belta: the Belter language from SYFY/Amazon’s The Expanse”, in Lingoblog - A disyllabic sequence of a vowel, a semivowel, and a vowel.
1 more example
Before moving on to a solution, it may be worth emphasizing that nouns of the صلوه type originally contained a triphthong. […] In addition to evidence from the Safaitic inscriptions, the discovery of the Graeco-Arabic inscription A1 (Al-Jallad and al-Manaser 2015), where the verb ’tw ‘he came’ is written αθαοα /’atawa/, confirms this to be the case for Old Arabic as well.
2017, Ahmad Al-Jallad, Was it sūrat al-baqárah? Evidence for antepenultimate stress in the Quranic Consonantal Text and its Relevance for صلوه Type Nouns
Origin
- Ancient Greekτρίφθογγος“triphthong, having three voices”
- Englishtriphthong
From the Ancient Greek τρίφθογγος (tríphthongos, “triphthong, having three voices”), from τρία (tría, “three”) + φθόγγος (phthóngos, “sound”).
More words from Ancient Greek
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Ancient Greek τρίφθογγος
- τρίφθογγος (tríphthongos)monosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Arabic تْرِفْثُنْغ
- تْرِفْثُنْغ (trifṯunḡ)monosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Bulgarian трифто́нг
- трифто́нг (triftóng)monosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Catalan triftong
- triftongmonosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Chinese Mandarin 三合元音, 三元音
- 三合元音 (sānhé yuányīn)monosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
- 三元音 (sānyuányīn)monosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Czech trojhláska
- trojhláskamonosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Danish triftong, trelyd
- triftongmonosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
- trelydmonosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Dutch drieklank, triftong
- drieklankmonosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
- triftongmonosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Esperanto triftongo
- triftongomonosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Finnish triftongi
- triftongimonosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
French triphtongue
- triphtonguemonosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
German Triphthong
- Triphthongmonosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Greek τρίφθογγος
- τρίφθογγος (trífthongos)monosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Hungarian hármashangzó, triftongus
- hármashangzómonosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
- triftongusmonosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Icelandic þríhljóð
- þríhljóðmonosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Italian trittongo
- trittongomonosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Japanese 三重音字, 三重字
- 三重音字 (sanjū onji)monosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
- 三重字 (sanjūji)monosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Korean 삼중모음
- 삼중모음 (samjungmo'eum)monosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Latvian triftongs
- triftongsmonosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Norwegian triftong
- triftongmonosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Polish tryftong, trójgłoska
- tryftongmonosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
- trójgłoskamonosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Portuguese tritongo
- tritongomonosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Romanian triftong
- triftongmonosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Russian трифто́нг
- трифто́нг (triftóng)monosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Slovak trojhláska
- trojhláskamonosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Spanish triptongo
- triptongomonosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Swedish triftong
- triftongmonosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Tagalog katluang-patinig
- katluang-patinigmonosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Ukrainian трифто́нг
- трифто́нг (tryftónh)monosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Vietnamese nguyên âm ba
- nguyên âm bamonosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Welsh trisain
- trisainmonosyllabic vowel combination involving movement from one vowel to another
Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with triphthong
All rhymes →Cite this entry
APA
triphthong. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/triphthong
MLA
“triphthong.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/triphthong. Accessed November 3, 2026.
Chicago
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “triphthong,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/triphthong.
Source: triphthong on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.