ternaryadj.n.

c1430 Art Nombryng 19 Some vsen forto distingue the nombre by threes, and ay begynne forto wirche vndre the first of the last ternary other uncomplete nombre.

1596 T. Bell Suruey Popery ii. ii. vi. 169 The ternarie number doth not determine the apparitions in themselues.

1603 P. Holland tr. Plutarch Morals 1302 This ternary or threefold number.

1659 J. Owen Div. Origin Authority Script. in Wks. (1853) XVI. 340 The Trinity..is a trinity in unity, or the ternary number of persons in the same essence.

1715 G. Cheyne Philos. Princ. Relig.: Pt. II ii. ii. 129 The Profane and Ignorant may make a Jest of this Ternary Chain.

1724 D. Waterland Farther Vindic. Christ's Divinity iv. §10 The equality is mentioned as belonging to the ternary number, here considered as a figure of the Trinity.

1881 B. F. Westcott & F. J. A. Hort New Test. in Orig. Greek II. Introd. iii. 107 Ternary variations in which each of the three groups approximately attests a different variant.

1909 Cent. Dict. Suppl. at Symmetry If [the angle is] 120°, or the crystal repeats itself three times, the symmetry is threefold or ternary and the axis is a triad axis.

1597 T. Morley Plaine & Easie Introd. Musicke Annot. sig. * The last of the two minimes is marked with a pricke..for perfections sake, that the ternary number may be obserued.]

1728 E. Chambers Cycl. at Measure Ternary, or Triple Measure, is that wherein the Fall is double to the Rise; or where two Minims are play'd during a Fall, and but one in a Rise.

1875 F. A. G. Ouseley Treat. Musical Form vi. 41 (heading) Of the ternary form.

1875 F. A. G. Ouseley Treat. Musical Form vii. 44 If the minuet form is adopted for a complete and isolated composition, it should be lengthened considerably, and then both the minuet and trio may be written in the ternary form.

1876 J. Stainer & W. A. Barrett Dict. Musical Terms 432/1 Ternary form, rondo form. Ternary measure, triple time.

1896 W. H. Hadow Sonata Form iv. 29 In its use for purposes of the Folk-song the most primitive Ternary form consists of a melody in three clauses: one of assertion..one of contrast..one of re-assertion.

1908 Athenæum 18 July 78/1 Another interesting instance of modification is that of binary form, which by expansion became ternary.

1931 D. F. Tovey Compan. Beethoven's Pianoforte Sonatas 2 The vital distinction between ‘binary’ and ‘ternary’ is that between an aggregate whose members are inseparable and an aggregate containing one or more things already complete.

1938 Oxf. Compan. Music 334/2 Properly, any composition in which the ear seizes two clear divisions is binary, and any in which it seizes three is ternary... ‘Sonata Form’..is often called ‘Compound Binary’... Certain text-books..speak of it as ‘Ternary’.

1938 Oxf. Compan. Music 335/1 Rondo Form. This may be looked upon as an extension of simple ternary form.

1944 W. Apel Harvard Dict. Music 88/1 The principle of ternary structure appeared first in the French chansons of the 16th century... The idea of a contrasting middle section is quite clearly expressed in the shepherd's solo of Monteverdi's Orfeo... Ternary form became clearly established in the da-capo aria, c. 1700.

1980 New Grove Dict. Music XVIII. 694/1 Tripartite musical form designated symbolically as ABA. The two elements A and B are often thematically independent and each is generally a ‘closed’ structure tonally, so that the interdependence of the two sections characteristic of binary form is not necessarily evident in ternary.

1808 Henry in Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 98 283 Oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon, united in the form of a ternary compound.

1808 J. Dalton New Syst. Chem. Philos. I. i. 213 If there are two bodies, A and B,..1 atom of A + 2 atoms of B = 1 atom of D, ternary.

1846 J. Baxter Libr. Pract. Agric. (ed. 4) I. 22 These ternary compounds, such as starch, gum, sugar,..are non-nitrogenized.

1851 T. Wright & G. F. Richardson Introd. Geol. (new ed.) 464 Perfect granite is a ternary compound of quartz, felspar, and di-axial mica, universally diffused.

1864 H. Spencer Princ. Biol. I. 11 In chemical stability these ternary compounds..are in a marked degree below the binary ones.

1889 Proc. Royal Soc. 1888–9 45 481 Ternary alloys obtained by adding tin to the immiscible pairs of metals, zinc and bismuth, aluminium and lead.

1897 W. D. Bancroft Phase Rule xi. 156 The change of isotherms with the temperature for a ternary system which permits of no compounds and no second solution phase.

1923 R. Glazebrook Dict. Appl. Physics V. 251/2 (heading) Methods of representing ternary equilibria.

1969 G. M. Bennison & A. E. Wright Geol. Hist. Brit. Isles xi. 261 The theoretical succession of deposition of minerals produced by the evaporation of sea-water is supported to a large extent by experimental work... However, the detailed course of crystallization, which varies considerably with different temperatures, can only be adequately represented by ternary diagrams.

1978 P. W. Atkins Physical Chem. x. 305 Consider a ternary solution of composition a₁. This is unsaturated, and is a single phase.

1979 Sci. Amer. Nov. 73/3 The new ternary alloys consist of between 68 and 80 percent copper.

1830 J. Lindley Introd. Nat. Syst. Bot. 251 The ternary division of the flower of Monocotyledons is often departed from..; many Dicotyledons have also ternary floral envelopes.

1866 J. Lindley & T. Moore Treasury Bot. Ternary, ternate, when three things are in opposition round a common axis.

1870 J. D. Hooker Student's Flora Brit. Islands 12 Berberideæ..analogy..in the 3-nary floral whorls with Monocotyledons.

1860 A. Cayley Coll. Math. Papers IV. 604 The number of variables (the function being homogeneous) is denoted by the words binary, ternary, &c.

1898 A. Cayley Coll. Math. Papers XIV. Index Ternary Quadratics... Ternary Quadrics... Ternary Quantics.

1955 Physical Rev. 97 748/2 There is some uncertainty regarding the occurrence in ternary fission of a light fragment having a mass and charge greater than an alpha particle.

1979 Nature 12 Apr. 615/2 Uranium and plutonium decay by ternary fission with only very low probability.

a1464 J. Capgrave Abbreuiacion of Cron. (Cambr. Gg.4.12) (1983) 8 Make in ȝoure soule to [= two] ternaries, on [= one] in feith, anothir in loue: beleue in God—Fadir and Son and Holy Gost; loue God in al ȝoure hert, al ȝoure soule, and al ȝoure mynde.

1543 R. Record Ground of Artes i. sig. B.ii^v Put a prycke ouer the fourth figure,..ouer the .vii...and so forth, styll leuing .ii. figures betwene eche .ii. pryckes. And those roumes betwene the pryckes, are called, ternaries.

1654 R. Whitlock Ζωοτομία 377 I conclude this Ternary of Worthies with Cato.

1686 tr. Livy i. i. xxiv. 15 There happened to be..three Brothers in each Army... The two Kings treated with these two ternaries of Brethren.

1781 S. Johnson Gray in Pref. Wks. Eng. Poets X. 26 The second ternary of stanzas [in The Progress of Poetry].

1570 J. Dee in H. Billingsley tr. Euclid Elements Geom. Math. Præf. sig. *j^v By the infinite goodnes of the Almighty Ternarie.

1662 J. Sparrow tr. J. Boehme 1st Apol. B. Tylcken in Remainder Bks. 79 There was Joy in Heaven in Ternario Sancto, in the Holy Ternary.