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War and Peace vocabulary
14 Christianity and/or Biblical vocabulary words
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tierce
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tags: [christianity] [sport] [unit]
► definition
Definition: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.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. (Mus.) The third tone of the scale. See Mediant.4. A sequence of three playing cards of the same suit. Tierce of ace, king, queen, is called tierce-major.5. (Fencing) A position in thrusting or parrying in which the wrist and nails are turned downward.6. (R. C. Ch.) The third hour of the day, or nine a.m.; one of the canonical hours; also, the service appointed for that hour.*Noah Webster. Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913)*now usually spelled "terce"
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► uses
Uses:
Mr. Starbuck, mind that cooper don't waste the spare staves. Oh! the sail-needles are in the green locker. Don't whale it too much a' Lord's days, men; but don't miss a fair chance either, that's rejecting Heaven's good gifts. Have an eye to the molasses tierce, Mr. Stubb; it was a little leaky, I thought. If ye touch at the islands, Mr. Flask, beware of fornication.
Herman Melville. Moby Dick
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it seemed rather disgraceful to fight with a cudgel and they wanted to assume a pose en quarte or en tierce according to all the rules, and to make an adroit thrust en prime, and so on— the cudgel of the people’s war was lifted with all its menacing and majestic strength,
Leo Tolstoy. War and Peace: 14 (Book Fourteen)
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Shortly after half tierce the leech, being returned from Amalfi, and minded now to treat his patient, called for his water, and finding the bottle empty made a great commotion, protesting that nought in his house could be let alone.
Giovanni Boccaccio. The Decameron, Volume I.
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He'd passed it to Whit just before the office of terce, whispering, "The abbot wishes to see you immediately after choir."
Sue Monk Kidd. The Mermaid Chair, p.225 (2005)
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