trigamous
/ˈtrɪɡəməs
/adjective
Having three wives or husbands at the same time.Marriages between members of clades with more than two sexes (such as the Genen Keymales) are known as trigamous, quadrigamous, and so on....
- Jia Fangjun and his team carried out the research on the development of the rare gobiocypris rarus ¡ ¯s artificial trigamous core and male core.
- Trigamous insect has no wing and the differences between metameres are not obvious.
Derivatives
trigamist
- We have taken to the custom of condemning trigamists to five years excommunication not on the ground of any canon but only on the ground of usage followed by those who have preceded us.
- Kahn's obituary recounted his impressive resumé but no mention was made of the fact that he was also a trigamist who had secretly kept three separate families for years.
- In times of abundant prey, male saw-whet owls may be bigamists and even trigamists, supporting two or three mates during one breeding season.
trigamy
- Maran confirms this opinion by the comparison of the imposition on polygamy of the same number of years of penance as are assigned to trigamy in Canon iv.
- Many examples of banished noblemen could be given: among them, the grandson of Columbus, Luis, Duke of Veragua, who was condemned to ten years in Oran for trigamy and died there in 1573.
- This curious person, whose good works have already led him to commit trigamy, engages a band of actors to enter a dismal lodging house and play roles necessary to the happiness of the various inmates.
Origin
Mid 19th century: from Greek trigamos (from tri- 'three' + gamos 'marriage') + -ous. The nouns trigamist and trigamy date from the mid 17th century.