triad

From Latin triad-, stem of trias (“three, triad”), from Ancient Greek τριάς (triás).

Sense 3 (“branch of a Chinese underground criminal society”) is due to the word being applied by the British authorities to underground society in Hong Kong based on the geometry of the Chinese character.

• IPA^(key): /tɹaɪ.æd/

triad (plural triads)

1. A grouping of three.

   Synonyms: threesome, trine, trinity, trio, triplet, troika, triumvirate; see also Thesaurus:trio

   • 2000, David Pierce, Irish Writing in the Twentieth Century: A Reader, page 625:

     There are, says the Irish triad, 'three fewnesses that are better than plenty: a fewness of fine words; a fewness of cows on grass; a fewness of good friends around good ale'. As an Ulsterman I would agree.

2. A word of three syllables.

   Synonym: trisyllable

   • 1815, Scott, Sir Walter, chapter 13, in Guy Mannering:

     In his general deportment he was pompous and important, affecting a species of florid elocution, which often became ridiculous from his misarranging the triads and quaternions with which he loaded his sentences.

3. A branch of a Chinese underground criminal society, mostly based in Hong Kong.
4. (electronics) on a CRT display, a group of three neighbouring phosphor dots, coloured green, red, and blue.
5. (music) A chord consisting of a root tone, the tone two degrees higher, and the tone four degrees higher in a given scale.

• (group of three): monad · duad, dyad · triad · tetrad · pentad · hexad · heptad · octad · ennead, nonad · decad, decade · hendecad · dodecad, duodecade
• (word of four syllables): quaternion

• mafia
• tong
• yakuza

• triad on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• drait, iTard