Link Centre Dictionary

tertian

ter·tian

uncommon

adjective

1.

relating to symptoms (especially malarial fever) that appear every other day

  • “tertian fever”
2.

of or relating to a tonal system based on major thirds

  • “a tertian tonal system”

Origin

From Middle English tertiān, terciān, terciāne (adjective and noun), originally often as part of the collocation fever cum terciane, after Latin febris cum tertiānā. Compare the "third" essence of tertiary. By surface analysis, terti- + -an.

Related words

Pertaining to

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.