Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Recurring every other day or, when considered inclusively, every third day.
- noun A tertian fever, such as vivax malaria.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Occurring every second day: as, a tertian fever.
- noun A fever or other disease whose paroxysms return after a period of two days, or on the third day, reckoning both days of consecutive occurrence; an intermittent whose paroxysms occur after intervals of about forty-eight hours.
- noun In organ-building, a stop consisting of a tierce and a larigot combined.
- noun A measure of 84 gallons, the third part of a tun.
- noun A curve of the third order.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective (Med.) Occurring every third day.
- noun (Med.) A disease, especially an intermittent fever, which returns every third day, reckoning inclusively, or in which the intermission lasts one day.
- noun A liquid measure formerly used for wine, equal to seventy imperial, or eighty-four wine, gallons, being one third of a tun.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Of a fever, characterised by
paroxysms everythird day. - adjective music Pertaining to the mean-tone temperament, in which
major thirds are perfectly in tune. - noun A tertian
fever . - noun The
puncheon , an old wine cask, three of which made atun .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective relating to symptoms (especially malarial fever) that appear every other day
- adjective of or relating to a tonal system based on major thirds
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Cinchona bark had long been used by indigenous people as a remedy for fevers, and at the end of the seventeenth century, a British physician, in one of the earliest controlled studies of a drug, proved that its effect was unique to what was then known as tertian fever.
MANUFACTURING DEPRESSION Gary Greenberg 2010
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Classically, but infrequently observed, the attacks occur every second day with the "tertian" parasites (P. falciparum, P. vivax, and P. ovale) and every third day with the "quartan" parasite (P. malariae).
Malaria 2008
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Saturday to Tuesday the symptoms continued ever worsening: a kind of tertian ague, "bastard tertian" as the old Doctors name it; for which it was ordered that his
The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 Ontario. Ministry of Education
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Classically, but infrequently observed, the attacks occur every second day with the "tertian" parasites (
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His adopted daughter Meg Giggs was interested in medicine and was known in the More family for having cured her father of tertian fever after reading the medical writings of Galen.
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For example, the parasite causing benign tertian malaria, Plasmodium viva, has an incubation time of about ten to seventeen days; the resulting fever, which can be as high as 104 – 106 degrees Fahrenheit, lasts for two to six hours and recurs every third day.
Pestilence and Headcolds: Encountering Illness in Colonial Mexico 2008
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Marco Ortiz wrote to his father in 1569 that he had been very ill "with chills and double tertian fever (tercianas dobles) that lasted for six months, [after which] I was cured, God being served."
Pestilence and Headcolds: Encountering Illness in Colonial Mexico 2008
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That year, mosquitoes infected by feeding on a patient in Rome were sent to London where they fed on two volunteers, both of whom developed benign tertian malaria.
Malaria 2008
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That very night, I tossed so violently in the throes of a dangerous chill that I was afraid I had contracted a tertian ague, and in my dreams I prayed for a medicine.
Satyricon 2007
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The quotidian, tertian, and quartan fevers, seem to me no less sacred and divine in their origin than this disease, although they are not reckoned so wonderful.
chained_bear commented on the word tertian
usage note on quartan
March 18, 2008