tres

Forms

tres (invariable; as a noun, plural treses)^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin trēs (“three”), and Old Spanish already had the same form.^[3][4][5][1] Latin declined the numeral, with a neuter tria; the neuter died out in the Romance languages, though Old Catalan kept it in the combination with mília (“thousands”).^[6] It survives in trío, a borrowing from Italian.^[3]

The same Latin word is Portuguese três, Galician tres, Asturian tres, Catalan tres, Occitan tres, French trois, Italian tre and Romanian trei.^[3][1][7][8]

The Latin numeral continues Proto-Italic *trēs, from Proto-Indo-European *tréyes, the nominative of the Indo-European word for “three”.^[1][9] It is cognate with Ancient Greek τρεῖς (treîs) and English three.^[1][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) uses the numeral in todos tres “all three” and tres mill “three thousand”: „todos tres se apartaron” “all three went aside”.^[11][12][4]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X uses the numeral in his scientific prose (tres maneras “three kinds” of a stone).^[13] Covarrubias names the children's game tres en raya and the card game tres dos y as.^[14] Autoridades records tres as children's word for a coin given them to play with, the old title of a magistrate (regidor) in a town that had three of them, as there were seises where there were six, and the slang tres de menor “donkey, mule”.^[15] The Academy's dictionary of 1817 adds the ordinal use (ley tres, capítulo tres), the figure 3, the card with three pips, and tres veces in the sense “very”.^[16] The edition of 1884 adds the hours (las tres).^[17]

Tres names a guitar with three double strings in Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Ecuador, and a folk instrument with very high-pitched strings in Puerto Rico; in Colombia it is a dance in which three people cross as in a braid.^[18][19][5] Malaret notes that in the Cibao the instrument has six strings.^[19] Set phrases include ni a la de tres “not by any means” and como tres y dos son cinco, said of an evident truth.^[5] Judeo-Spanish has no dezir dos por tres “to report faithfully”.^[20]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has todos tres.^[11][4]
• 1182 – a Latin fragment has per tres dies, the first hit of the CDH in a contemporary copy.^[11]
• 1250–1279 – the Lapidario of Alfonso X speaks of tres maneras of a stone.^[13]
• 1513 – Nebrija glosses tres as Latin numerus ternarius.^[21]
• 1519 – the first record from the Americas, in Tierra Firme.^[22]
• 1611 – Covarrubias names the game tres en raya.^[14]
• 1817 – the Academy records the plural treses and tres veces “very”.^[16]
• 1832 – tresillo, the card game, is recorded.^[4]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. tres”.^[17]

Meanings

Numeral

1. three: Compré tres panes.^[5][1]
2. (after a noun) third; used for the days of the month: el tres de octubre.^[5]

Noun

1. The number three; the figure 3.^[5]
2. The three of a suit of cards, or a dice or domino face with three spots.^[5]
3. (historical) A town magistrate where there were three of them.^[5][15]
4. A group of three voices or instruments; a trio.^[5]
5. (Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador) A guitar with three double strings, played with a plectrum.^[5][18]
6. (feminine plural) Three o'clock: Te espero a las tres.^[5]

Word family

• tresillo

Related words

• tercero
• tercio
• trece
• treinta
• trescientos
• trinidad
• Latin trēs
• Portuguese três

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. tres
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 624
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tres
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. tres
6. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 8, 779
7. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 3369
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. trois
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. tres
12. ^ Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 463
13. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. tres
14. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1348
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 351
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 862
17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1049
18. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. tres
19. ^ a b Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 792
20. ^ Nehama, Joseph (1977), Dictionnaire du judéo-espagnol, Madrid: CSIC, p. s.v. tres
21. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 424
22. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. tres