tierce

1. also Tierce (tîrs) or terce or Terce (tûrs) Ecclesiastical.
   1. The third of the seven canonical hours. No longer in liturgical use.
   2. The time of day appointed for this service, usually the third hour after sunrise.
2. A measure of liquid capacity, equal to a third of a pipe, or 42 gallons (159 liters).
3. Games. A sequence of three cards of the same suit.
4. Sports. The third position from which a parry or thrust can be made in fencing.
5. Music. An interval of a third.

[Middle English, from Old French, from feminine of tiers, third, from Latin tertius.]

Obsolete measure of wine cask; ⅓ of a pipe, i.e. about 35 imperial gallons (160 litres).

[Etymology: ‘third’] A bulk-measure cask, with established volumes and quantities in historic marketplaces, = ⅓ pipe or butt = ⅙ tun.

An organ stop, a mutation at 1⅗′ pitch, sounding two octaves and a major 3rd above the main note. It was popular in French organs of the 17th-18th centuries, where a Double Tierce, at 3⅕′ pitch (one octave and a major 3rd above the main note), was also used.

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