Meaning of ter | Babel Free

Definitions

1. thrice, three times
   not-comparable
2. three as understood symbolically in a cultural context
   not-comparable
3. repeatedly; indefinitely
   not-comparable

Equivalents

Examples

“Ter sēsē attollēns cubitōque adnīxa levāvit,”

Lifting herself three times, [Dido] had tried to raise upon her elbow, and thrice she had rolled back upon the bed ….

“‘ter voluī prōmittere opem, ter lingua retenta est:”

“Thrice I wanted to promise help, thrice [my] tongue was stayed: the anger of mighty Jupiter was the reason for [my] fear.” (The poetic voice is that of Flora.)

“Olafur Ragnar Grimsson ter iam primarius minister Islandiae electus est.”

Olafur Ragnar Grimsson has been elected as the president of Iceland for a third time.

“Stant ārae circum, et crīnēs effūsa sacerdōs ter centum tonat ōre deōs, Erebumque Chaosque,”

Altars are standing all around [the pyre], and the priestess — with her hair flowing — thunders from her lips thrice a hundred gods’ [names]: Erebus and Chaos, triform Hecate, [and] the three faces of virgin Diana. (The priestess who invokes “ter centum” deities may be calling three hundred gods, 100 gods three times, or “hundreds of” or “a great many,” and some of the named gods have tri-part symbolism. Threes have special significance in myth, folklore and ritual; see: Lease, Emory B., The Number Three, Mysterious, Mystic, Magic. Classical Philology, Jan., 1919, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 56-73.)

CEFR level