troikan.
/ˈtrɔɪkə/, U.S. /ˈtrɔɪkə/ 1. A Russian vehicle drawn by three horses abreast.
ΘΚΠ
society > travel > means of travel > a conveyance > vehicle > cart, carriage, or wagon > [noun] > drawn by specific number or arrangement
tandem1785
unicorn1785
four-in-hand1793
randem1801
two-at-length1823
troika1842
random-tandem1847
1842 tr. Kohl's Russia xxv. 202 One of his [Orlowsky's] best, and best-known pictures is his ‘Courier’. A Russian troika is carried on at full speed by three wild horses.
1904 Daily Record (Glasgow) 22 Apr. 4 I crossed the Baikal in a troika, a basket sleigh on wooden runners, drawn by three horses abreast.
2. A group or set of three persons (rarely things) or categories of people associated in power; a three-person commission or administrative council. Also attributive.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > rule or government > ruler or governor > deliberative, legislative, or administrative assembly > types of body or spec. bodies > [noun] > of specific number of people
the twenty-four1440
octovirate1610
douzaine1771
troika1945
1945 A. Koestler Yogi & Commissar iii. iii. 208 The deportees were called for..by the so-called ‘Executive Troikas’ of the N.K.V.D.
1954 C. P. Snow New Men xl. 286 Faith, hope, and hate: that was the troika which rushed him on.
1957 Times Lit. Suppl. 15 Nov. 682/1 The so-called troika, or commission of three, which authorized summary executions.
1961 Guardian 6 June 1/2 Experience of the United Nations action in the Congo..had convinced the Soviet Government of the need for the troika principle to be applied to all international action.
1961 New Statesman 9 June 901/2 Krushchev's central doctrine of the ‘Troika’, the principle of triple-harness—Communist, western and uncommitted—in the administrative, as well as in the policy-making, organs of the UN.
1969 A. Arent Laying on of Hands (1971) ix. 91 The landed gentry. Part of the troika who, with the army and the Church, run Spain.
1971 Nature 26 Feb. 585/1 Every chemistry department, after all, is now at least a troika of inorganic, physical and organic chemistry.
1974 T. P. Whitney tr. A. Solzhenitsyn Gulag Archipel. I. i. vii. 281 Real scope entered the picture with the twenties, when permanently operating Troikas—panels of three, operating behind closed doors—were created to bypass the courts permanently.
1976 Church Times 23 Jan. 9/1 The editorship is now a troika consisting of David Jenkins, John Drury and James Mark.
1976 M. J. Lasky Utopia & Revol. (1977) ii. 92 Ideas, images, and ideology never quite manage to be harnessed into a controllable troika.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1915; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1842