/θɹiː/, [θɾ̪̊iː], [θɾ̪̊ɪi]
OriginFrom Middle English thre, threo, thrie, thri, from Old English þrī, from Proto-West Germanic *þrīʀ, from Proto-Germanic *þrīz, from Proto-Indo-European *tréyes. Doublet of tres and trey.
Cognate with German drei, Albanian tre, Armenian երեք (erekʻ), Latin trēs, Latvian trīs, Lithuanian trỹs, Greek τρεῖς (treís), Old Church Slavonic трьѥ (trĭje), and others.
- A numerical value after two and before four. Represented in Arabic digits as 3; this many dots (•••).
“Venters began to count them—one—two—three—four—on up to sixteen.”
“There is a soft-mat seat (which originally had a palm fiber underwebbing) supported by three curved transverse braces.”
“Okay, on three, we open the door and jump on the rope. One, two…
Wait, wait! Do we go on three? Or do we go on “go”?
Three! Who said anything about “go”?”
- Describing a set or group with three elements.
- The digit/figure 3.
“In our example, 1210 has 1 zero, 2 ones, 1 two and 0 threes.”
- Anything measuring three units, as length.
“Put all the threes in a separate container.”
- A person who is three years old.
“All the threes will go in Mrs. Smith's class, while I'll take the fours and fives.”
- The playing card featuring three pips.
- Three o'clock, either a.m. or p.m.
“It was a weary time. A carriage clock had been placed on the discoloured wooden mantelpiece, and slowly its hands crept on from one to two and from two to three.”
- abbreviation, alt-ofAbbreviation of three-pointer.
Formsthre(alternative, obsolete) · þree(alternative, obsolete) · threy(alternative, obsolete) · thrie(alternative, obsolete) · threes(plural)