trivium

English

Etymology

PIE word
*tréyes

Borrowed from Latin trivium.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɹɪviəm/

Noun

trivium (plural triviums or trivia)

1. (historical, in medieval universities) The lower division of the liberal arts; grammar, logic and rhetoric.
2. (zoology) The three anterior ambulacra of echinoderms, collectively.
3. (rare) Singular of trivia; anything of little importance.
   • 1943, Michael Melucci, Political Cinematology: How Motion Pictures and Television Will Shape the Political Destiny of America (Tele-Screen Century Series; 2), Newark, N.J.: Variety Press, →OCLC, page 29:

     […] question of sympathy or antipathy sometimes evoked by a trivium; and in the category of trivia many learned and responsible individuals include Motion Pictures. Only they are not so trivial if we consider the power of feeling evoked by Motion Pictures, and the number of movie-goers.

   • 1946 September 14, William W. Brickman, “Books: For the Advancement of Teaching NEA History: The National Education Association: Its Development and Program. By Mildred Sandison Fenner. […]”, in I[saac] L[eon] Kandel, L. Remmy Beyer, editors, School and Society, volume 64, number 1655, Lancaster, Pa.: […] [F]or The Society for the Advancement of Education, Inc., at The Science Press, page 191, column 2:

     For the most part, Mrs. Fenner lays stress on the personalities and accomplishments of the executive secretaries, which is as it should be, since these gentlemen remained longer in the center of things than the presidents, who were elected for one year. The style is unpedantic and is flavored with references to colorful trivia, as for example, to the drunken janitor (p. 37) and to the romantic outcomes of NEA conventions (p. 28). Perhaps matrimony is not a trivium.

   • 1948, New Statesman and Nation, volume 36, pages 382 and 450:

     Smith (Logan Pearpall^[sic]) Junior: First Trivium. I missed the train this morning, of all mornings. […] The usual prizes are offered for a “trivium” (not more than 150 words) in the manner of the late Logan Pearsall Smith, on Gallup Polls.

   • 1950 August, Leo Kirschbaum, “Acknowledgments”, in Clear Writing, New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company, page v:

     Harcourt, Brace, and Co.: for an excerpt from Stuart Chase’s The Tyranny of Words; for E. M. Forster’s “My Wood,” in Abinger Harvest; and for a trivium from Logan Pearsall Smith’s All Trivia.

   • 1996 September, Books Ireland, numbers 192–200, page 242, column 3:

     Like so many things in life the calendar can easily be an over-conditioning factor unless one allows the measuring of time to drain away into the silence of a music that tells no time. Whether the year 2001 is referred to as Two-Oh-Oh-One or Twenty-O-One (to avoid the ponderous ‘thousand’ bit), that point of no return will be just another bridge to cross—if and when we come to it—and I imagine the transition will occur quietly without the slightest shudder. In aeons to come the third millennium will end up a trivium among timeless trivia.

Derived terms

• trivia
• trivial

Related terms

• trivialis
• quadrivium

Latin

Etymology

From tri- (“three”) +‎ via (“road”). Compare trivius (“epithet of deities having temples at the intersection of three roads”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈtri.u̯i.um/, [ˈt̪riu̯iʊ̃ˑ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈtri.vi.um/, [ˈt̪riːvium]

Noun

trivium n (genitive triviī or trivī); second declension

1. a crossroads or fork where three roads meet
2. (Medieval Latin) trivium

Declension

Second-declension noun (neuter).

	singular	plural
nominative	trivium	trivia
genitive	triviī trivī1	triviōrum
dative	triviō	triviīs
accusative	trivium	trivia
ablative	triviō	triviīs
vocative	trivium	trivia

¹Found in older Latin (until the Augustan Age).

Descendants

• Italian: trebbio
• → English: trivium
• → Italian: trivio
• → Ukrainian: три́віум (trývium)

Adjective

trivium

1. inflection of trivius:
   1. nominative/accusative/vocative neuter singular
   2. accusative masculine singular

References

• “trivium”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “trivium”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• trivium in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• trivium in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • Hercules at the cross-roads, between virtue and vice: Hercules in trivio, in bivio, in compitis
    
• “trivium”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin trivium.

Noun

trivium n (uncountable)

1. trivium

Declension

singular only	indefinite	definite
nominative-accusative	trivium	triviumul
genitive-dative	trivium	triviumului
vocative	triviumule