Thrice

Part of speech: adverb

Pronunciation: /θɹaɪs/

Definitions

  1. Three times or on three occasions
  2. An occurrence that takes place three times in total
  3. The act of repeating an event or action on three distinct occasions

Etymology: Thrice is a word that has kept its Old English shape almost unchanged, with the sound "th" running back through the earliest recorded forms. Its ancestor was Old English "þriwa" or "þreowa," which meant "three times," and the related Old Frisian "thria" and Middle Low German "drîes" show that the same root was shared across the North Sea and Low Countries. The ending "-es" is the interesting part. In Old English this was a suffix that turned a word into an adverb of time, place, or manner, and it appears in many familiar words that have since lost it, such as "once" and "twice." Middle English speakers joined it to the older "thrī" and "thrīe," which already meant "three times," so the final word carried a doubled adverbial marking that later English never simplified.

Synonyms: three times