trig
Pluraltrigs (some meanings)
Pluraltrigs (some meanings)
- 1The branch of mathematics concerned with triangles and the relationships between their angles and side lengths.
Trig is essential for anyone studying engineering or physics.
She breezed through trig but struggled with calculus.
Similartrigonometry
Note
A classroom clipping of trigonometry, and an uncountable one: you study trig or pass trig, never "a trig." That is the quick way to tell it from the surveyor's marker, which comes from the same clipping but counts, as in one trig or two trigs. Keep it for talk and informal writing; a textbook or exam paper spells out trigonometry.
- 2A permanent survey marker, typically a concrete pillar set on high ground, used as a reference point for mapping and measuring land.
The surveyor recorded her position relative to the nearest trig.
From the trig you can see three counties on a clear day.
Note
Surveyors' shorthand for a trig point, a fixed station used in measuring and mapping land. The trig in its name is the same clipping of trigonometry as the school subject. Unlike that subject, it is countable, so you can reach a trig, or count the trigs along a ridge. It stays informal, and careful survey writing uses the full term.
- 3A type of fat present in the blood and in food, commonly measured to assess a person's health risks.
Her trigs came back elevated, so the clinic recommended dietary changes.
He tracks his trig numbers alongside his cholesterol every few months.
Similartriglyceride
Note
Clinic shorthand for triglyceride, the ester of glycerol and three fatty-acid chains that makes up most body fat and dietary oil. It usually appears in the plural when people discuss test results, as in "my trigs are up," and it sits beside cholesterol on a lipid panel. It is a separate clipping from the trig of trigonometry, though the spelling is identical.
- 4Neat, tidy, and well-groomed in appearance; trim and smartly turned out.
The sailors kept the deck trig and orderly.
Her appearance was always trig, never a hair out of place.
Similarneat, tidy, trim, smart, spruce
Oppositeuntidy, messy, scruffy, unkempt
Note
Appearance is what counts in this sense, and the word likes company. Robert W. Chambers calls a matron "trim and trig" in The Younger Set (1907), and Newsweek in 1973 describes "a trim, trig lot" of men. The comparative is spelled trigger and the superlative triggest, so a trigger deck is simply a neater one. It has nothing to do with a gun.
- 5Firm, steady, and sound; in good physical condition or health.
The boat remained trig and watertight through the storm.
Despite his age, he kept himself trig and able.
Similarsound, firm, sturdy, fit, steady
Note
Soundness rather than looks is the point here: a hull that holds, a body that keeps its strength. Ships are a natural subject, and Thomas Wake in Robert and Max Eggers's The Lighthouse (2019) praises one as "clean-built and trig-lookin'." That hyphenated trig-looking is a handy pattern, because the word compounds easily when someone describes how sound a thing appears.
- 6A stone, block of wood, or similar object placed under a wheel or barrel to keep it from moving.
The carter wedged a trig behind each wheel before unhitching the horse.
A stray trig had worked loose, and the wagon began to drift downhill.
Note
A wedge against rolling, related by origin to trigger and a near twin of scotch and skid. Sylvester Judd stretches it to the impossible in Richard Edney and the Governor's Family (1850): you might as well "put a trig under the dam and stop it." There the humble chock becomes a picture of a small effort against an unstoppable force. The verb does the same job as an action.
- 7To stop a wheel, barrel, or similar object by placing a block or stone beneath it.
She trigged the heavy cask with a wedge of oak.
Trig the wheels firmly before unloading on the slope.
Similarchock, scotch, wedge, block
Note
The action form of the wedge noun: you trig a wheel or a cask by setting something under it. It is transitive and always takes the thing being stopped as its object. Its spelling doubles the g in trigged and trigging. Scotch and skid are its regional synonyms.
- 8A small cricket belonging to the family Trigonidiidae.
The naturalist recorded a trig singing among the reeds.
Trigs are far smaller than the field crickets most people recognize.
Note
An entomologist's clipping of Trigonidiidae, the family of small sword-tail and winged bush crickets. In the females, a flat, blade-like ovipositor helps mark them out. The short name belongs to informal field and naturalists' usage. Formal taxonomy writes the family name in full.
- 9
- 10True, trusty, and faithful; able to be relied upon.
A trig servant, he never once betrayed his master's confidence.
They valued him as a trig and steadfast ally.
Similartrusty, faithful, loyal, reliable, true
Oppositedisloyal, unreliable
Note
A cousin of true: the word came through Middle English from Old Norse tryggr, "loyal, faithful, true", and shares its Germanic root with Old English trīewe. That origin runs under every adjective here, from the "safe" meaning to the "neat" one. In this sense it praises people who keep faith, such as a servant or an ally. It belongs to regional speech, so elsewhere trusty or faithful says the same thing.
- 11
- 12
- 13A man overly concerned with his fine clothes and appearance; a dandy or coxcomb.
A proper trig, he never stepped outside without a flower in his lapel.
The village trigs paraded along the green in their finest.
Note
The person the "neat" adjective describes, turned into a noun and tipped into mockery: a trig is a man too pleased with his own turnout. Coxcomb gives the flavor, which is vanity and not just good grooming. Now it survives mainly in dialect, so outside regional writing dandy is the word to reach for.
- 14To fill, stuff, or cram something until it is full.
They trigged the barn with hay before the first frost.
He would trig his pipe and settle by the fire each evening.
Similarstuff, cram, fill, pack
Oppositeempty
Note
A word apart from the wheel-stopping verb: its origin is compared with Danish trykke, "to press," so packing things in by pressure is the core idea. Henry More writes in 1660 of a skin "full treg'd with flesh, blood and natural Spirits," spelling it with an e. The word full, set just before it, shows the sense: filled until nothing more fits.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origins
This word came from Middle English trig, from Old Norse tryggr ("loyal, faithful, true"), from Proto-Germanic *triwwiz. It is related to Old English trīewe ("faithful, loyal, true") and to the word true.
A clipping of trigonometry.