tertium quid

Tertium quid (Latin loan translation of Greek "tríton ti" for a "third thing") was a term first used in the Christological debates of the fourth century to refer to the followers of Apollinaris who spoke of Christ as something neither human nor divine, but a mixture of the two, and therefore a "third thing".

The term in more recent times has been employed in non-religious usage.

Tertium quid was applied to the name of a potential third party in American politics that arose in 1804 during Thomas Jefferson's first term in office. The Tertium quids, or Quids for short, were reactionary members of the Democrat-Republican Party led by Virginia's John Randolph of Roanoke, who stood by the party's original stance for strict construction of the Constitution and opposed Jefferson's pragmatic approach to governing.

The term is also used in the important Supreme Court case Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Samara Brothers, Inc. 529 U.S. 205 (2000). In this Lanham Act case, the court, when discussing product packaging vs. product design, referred to the type of trade dress in its earlier Two Pesos decision as "some tertium quid" that may be a mutation of product packaging and product design—a "third thing."

Kipling employs the term in "At the Pit’s Mouth," for an adulterer: "Once upon a time there was a Man and his Wife and a Tertium Quid."

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