English

Noun

tierce ‎(plural tierces)

1. A cask whose content is one third of a pipe; that is, forty-two wine gallons; also, a liquid measure of forty-two wine, or thirty-five imperial, gallons.
   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, chapter 22

     Have an eye to the molasses tierce, Mr. Stubb; it was a little leaky, I thought.

   • 1882, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, p. 205:

     Again, by 28 Hen. VIII, cap. 14, it is re-enacted that the tun of wine should contain 252 gallons, a butt of Malmsey 126 gallons, a pipe 126 gallons, a tercian or puncheon 84 gallons, a hogshead 63 gallons, a tierce 41 gallons, a barrel 31.5 gallons, a rundlet 18.5 gallons.

2. A cask larger than a barrel, and smaller than a hogshead or a puncheon, in which salt provisions, rice, etc., are packed for shipment.
3. (music) The third tone of the scale. See mediant.
4. (card games) A sequence of three playing cards of the same suit. Tierce of ace, king and queen is called tierce-major.
5. (fencing) The third defensive position, with the sword hand held at waist height, and the tip of the sword at head height.
   • 1837 Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History

     [W]e behold two men with lion-look, with alert attitude, side foremost, right foot advanced; flourishing and thrusting, stoccado and passado, in tierce and quart; intent to skewer one another.

6. (heraldry) An ordinary that covers the left or right third of the field of a shield or flag.
7. (religion, Roman Catholic) The third hour of the day, or nine a.m.; one of the canonical hours; also, the service appointed for that hour.
8. (obsolete) One sixtieth of a second, i.e., the third in a series of fractional parts in a sexagesimal number system. (Also known as a third.)

Translations

Anagrams

• recite

French

Etymology

From Old French, from Latin tertia.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tjɛʁs/

Adjective

tierce

1. feminine singular of tiers

Noun

tierce f ‎(plural tierces)

1. (music) third
2. terce

Anagrams

• écrite, étréci, récite, récité

Old French

Adjective

tierce m ‎(oblique and nominative feminine singular tierce)

1. Alternative form of tiers
   • circa 1170, Chrétien de Troyes, Érec et Énide:

     La tierce oevre fu de musique

     The third work was of music

Usage notes

• Unlike french tierce, it is attested with masculine nouns as well as feminine ones.