trice

• IPA^(key): /tɹaɪs/
• Rhymes: -aɪs

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From Middle English trīcen, trice, trise (“to pull or push; to snatch away; to steal”), from Middle Dutch trīsen (“to hoist”)[1] (modern Dutch trijsen) or Middle Low German trissen (“to trice the spritsail”); further etymology uncertain. The word is cognate with Danish trisse, tridse (“to haul with a pulley”), Low German trissen, tryssen, drisen, drysen (“to wind up, trice”), German trissen, triezen (“to annoy or torment”).[2]

trice (third-person singular simple present trices, present participle tricing, simple past and past participle triced)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To pull, to pull out or away, to pull sharply.
   • 1875 August, Clements R[obert] Markham, “Arctic Ice-travels”, in E[dward] L[ivingston] Youmans, editor, The Popular Science Monthly, volume VII, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton and Company, […], →OCLC, page 479:

     The tent is made of light, close, unbleached duck, […] A window, six inches square, is fitted at the upper end with a flap to trice up or haul down.

2. (transitive) To drag or haul, especially with a rope; specifically (nautical) to haul or hoist and tie up by means of a rope.
   • 1900, Joseph Conrad, chapter 3, in Lord Jim:

     ... the fold of his double chin hung like a bag triced up close under the hinge of his jaw.

   • 1911, Arthur H[amilton] Clark, “California Clippers of 1852—The ‘Sovereign of the Seas’”, in The Clipper Ship Era: An Epitome of Famous American and British Clipper Ships, Their Owners, Builders, Commanders, and Crews 1843–1869, New York, N.Y., London: G. P. Putnam's Sons […], →OCLC, page 215:

     One of the two men landed had shot and wounded the mate, and the other, known as "Doublin Jack," had knocked the second mate down with a handspike. Captain Low put both these men in irons, triced them up in the mizzen rigging, and gave them each four dozen lashes of ratline stuff, which they had well earned.

• trise (obsolete)

From Middle English trīce, trise, in the phrase at a trīce (“with a single, quick motion; at once”, literally “with a pull or jerk”), later also in the phrases in a trice, on a trice, and with a trice. The word is ultimately from Middle English trīcen: see etymology 1 above.[3]

trice (plural trices)

1. Now only in the phrase in a trice: a very short time; the blink of an eye, an instant, a moment.
   • 1586, William Warner, “The Fourth Booke. Chapter XXXIII.”, in Albions England. Or Historicall Map of the Same Island: […], London: […] George Robinson [and R. Ward] for Thomas Cadman, […], →OCLC, page 162:

     Miſtruſtfully he truſteth, and he dreadingly did dare, / And fortie paſſions in a trice in him conſort and ſquare.

   • c. 1603–1606 (date written), [William Shakespeare], […] His True Chronicle Historie of the Life and Death of King Lear and His Three Daughters. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Nathaniel Butter, […], published 1608, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:

     This is most ſtrange, that ſhe, who even but now / Was your beſt object, the argument of your praiſe, / Balme of your age, moſt beſt, moſt deereſt, / Should in this trice of time commit a thing / So monſtrous, to diſmantell ſo many foulds of fauour, […]

   • 1834 [1799], Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, “The Devil's Thoughts”, in The Poetical Works of S. T. Coleridge, volume II, London: W. Pickering, page 85:

     He saw a Turnkey in a trice / Unfetter a troublesome blade;

   • 1907, Robert W[illiam] Service, “The Cremation of Sam McGee”, in The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses, New York, N.Y.: Barse & Hopkins, publishers, →OCLC, page 53:

     Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay; / It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May." / And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum; / Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."

   • 2013, J[ohn] M[axwell] Coetzee, chapter 22, in The Childhood of Jesus, Melbourne, Vic.: The Text Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 220:

     And in a trice he has clambered onto the kitchen dresser and is reaching for the top shelf.

   • 2023 October 14, Simon Schama, “Let us be, to grieve, rage, weep; say the mourners' kaddish”, in FT Weekend, page 9:

     Perhaps images then, not words? Of terrified young people who in a trice went from dancing to frantic running in a futile attempt to escape the spray of bullets; […]

From Middle English trīce, tryys, tryyst, from Middle Dutch trīse, trijs (modern Dutch trijs (“hoisting-block, pulley, windlass”)) or Middle Low German trīsse, trītse (“hoisting-rope, tackle”);[4] probably related to the verb trice (see etymology 1 above), and perhaps to Old English tryndel (“roller, wheel”) (see further at trend, trindle). The English word is cognate with Danish tridse, trisse (“pulley”), Low German trissel (“dizziness; whirling”), German trieze (“crane; pulley”), Norwegian triss (“pulley”), Swedish trissa (“pulley, truckle”).[5]

trice (plural trices)

1. (obsolete, rare) A pulley, a windlass (“form of winch for lifting heavy weights, comprising a cable or rope wound around a cylinder”).

• trice (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• Ticer, citer, recit, recti, recti-, retic

trice

1. comparative degree of tric

trice

1. comparative degree of tric

trice

1. inflection of trica:
   1. genitive singular
   2. nominative/accusative/vocative plural