tertium quid

ter·ti·um quid

(tûr′shē-əm kwĭd′, tĕr′tē-o͝om′)

1. Something that cannot be classified into either of two groups considered exhaustive; an intermediate thing or factor.

2. A third person or thing of indeterminate character.

[Late Latin : Latin tertium, from neuter of tertius, third + quid, something.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

tertium quid

(ˈtɜːtɪəm ˈkwɪd)

an unknown or indefinite thing related in some way to two known or definite things, but distinct from both: there is either right or wrong, with no tertium quid.

[C18: from Late Latin, rendering Greek triton ti some third thing]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

ter•ti•um quid

(ˈtɜr ʃi əm ˈkwɪd, ˈtɛər ti-)
n.

1. something related in some way to two things, but distinct from both; something intermediate between two things.

2. a third person or thing of indeterminate character.

[1715–25; < Latin, translation of Greek tríton ti some third thing]

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Noun

tertium quid - some third thing similar to two opposites but distinct from both

oppositeness, opposition - the relation between opposed entities

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References in periodicals archive ?

Uniting the separate elements of a Catholic marriage-whether it be husband and wife, or soul and body--is the "transcendent tertium quid" known as Agape (p.

Olivier Messiaen: Texts, Contexts, & Intertexts (1937-1948)

Randolph teamed up with John Taylor of Caroline and the pair became the leading lights of the Tertium Quid cohort.

John Randolph of Roanoke: John Randolph is one of the few politicians in our country's history with enough fortitude and honor to battle to retain the Republic given to us, even at great personal cost

Treiger argues that the background to the notion of existence as a tertium quid between equivocity and univocity is already clear in the commentators on Aristotle and in the work of al-Farabi, but that it is Avicenna who in al-Mubahathat and elsewhere pinpoints tashkik as a means for relating God and the cosmos, for linking God and contingents in a transcendental notion of existence.

Islamic Philosophy, Science, Culture, and Religion: Studies in Honor of Dimitri Gutas

Other Half-Rome, and Tertium Quid, produce different images of anger.

Browning and the intelligent uses of anger in The Ring and the Book

Years ago, John described his politics to me: "I am a 1700s Virginia republican, an 1800 Tertium Quid, an 1830s Loco Foco, an 1850s Republican, an 1890s western progressive, a 1930s agrarian distributist, and today a plain old decentralist agrarian Reaganaut."

Vermont's republican radical

The alterative immigrant subjectivity is identified by Cha as tertium quid, which in Latin means a "third thing." A tertium quid subjectivity is positioned not only in relation to the imperial and native culture, but also in relation to the individual, internal consciousness of the female subject's personal life in America.

The transitional self and tertium quid in Theresa Cha's Dictee

And it continues to do so despite the recent introduction of a linguistic tertium quid that is neither Latin nor the vernacular.

Four constitutions changed parish life forever

Two opposing camps can be distinguished: 1) the 'bioconservatists', who, as the name suggests, recommend that we should not tamper with human evolution in this way, and 2) the 'transhumanists', who, again as expected, believe that we should make the most of the artificial adaptations--the editors also isolate a tertium quid camp who espouse something like the idea of a 'golden mean' in terms of allowed enhancements.

Julian Savulescu and Nick Bostrom, eds.: Human Enhancement

R.'s tertium quid between liberal subjectivism and a conservative adherence to interventionist providence is deft.

Cosmology: From Alpha to Omega: The Creative Mutual Interaction of Theology and Science

In its own way, the Summa understanding of "Jew" reiterates the work's thesis that Aquinas is a tertium quid between the traditionalist and revisionist interpretations of Romans.