Meaning

To reduce by one third; especially, kill one third of (a group of people)..

Definitions by Sense

1. To reduce by one third; especially, kill one third of (a group of people).
2. (obsolete) To increase by half as much again; especially to increase the price in this way.
3. (rare, obsolete) To do or perform three times or for the third time.
4. To divide into three parts, especially to divide into thirds.
5. (firearms) To examine, as the thickness of the metal at the muzzle of a gun; or, in general, to examine the thickness of, as ordnance, in order to ascertain its strength.
6. The third year of training in various Christian religious orders (especially the Jesuits).
7. One who is in their tertiate training.
8. The third classification of animals in some ranked taxonomic systems, such as that proposed by Linnaeus.

Example Sentences

Seven spills of paper of precisely equal length were given round, and after an interval collected. Had any of them been dimidiated, tertiated or even decimated, the proposed election was void.

We are distinctly told that one cause of the terrible famine that has been — not decimating, but tertiating — the population of Rajpootana, has been the substitution of cotton for grain culture;

“The Jews…were not merely decimated, for that means only one in ten of the world’s Jews were killed by the Nazis, but tertiated. One in every three were slaughtered.”

The Jewish People were not decimated…. Our people lost every third of its sons or its daughters…it was tertiated.

The beam made for triplicating or tertiating any weight small enough to be weighed by it.

such a fancy never produces any other effect, but that of tertiating or doubling the price of things.

the chief and true point, is, that all secret intrigues, all public combinations, ended only in occasioning a reform in what was deemed abusive, in a regulation the advantages of which were fully demonstrated; and that the price of wheat, after having tertiated, doubled, trebled perhaps by the help of the forestallers, from whose abilities were expected the repeal of the law and the fall of its devisers, was fixed at last between one half and three fourths above the price, as it was upon the medium of ten years preceding the regulation.

When you consult vvith me about the Personage that should first, or second, or tertiate your business with the King, I must answer as Demosthenes did of Action; My Lord Thresorer, My Lord Thresorer , and so again.

Word Forms

• tertiates
• tertiating
• tertiated
• more tertiate
• most tertiate

Related Words

When Should You Use Tertiate?

Use tertiate when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

Practice This Word

Frequently Asked Questions