HOW TO PRONOUNCE
tertiary
/ˈtɝ.ʃiˌɛɹ.i/
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American Pronunciation Guide · 0:49
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TUR-shee-air-ee: use four syllables.
The second t is part of a sh sound. The first syllable is strongest; the dictionary also records a shorter TUR-shuh-ree form.
TRY SAYING
“The map uses a tertiary color for the smaller roads.”
APG practice sentence · CC BY-SA 4.0
Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗What does tertiary mean?
adjective
- Of third rank or order; subsequent.
- Possessing some quality in the third degree; especially having been subjected to the substitution of three atoms or radicals.
- Of quills: growing on the innermost joint of a bird's wing; tertial.
More meanings (8)
noun
- Any item considered to be of third order.
- A tertiary colour.
- Something from the Tertiary Period (the former term for the geologic period from 65 million to 2.58 million years ago).
- A tertiary feather; a tertial.
- A large stage in some extremely powerful thermonuclear weapons (resembling a greatly-enlarged secondary) which is compressed by the explosion of the secondary until ignition of nuclear fusion takes place, in much the same manner as the secondary is imploded by the primary, and which can allow for the attainment of yields of many tens or even hundreds of megatons, and likely even greater; not used in modern weapons due to a greater focus on the accurate use of sub-megaton weapons, the tremendous size of weapons incorporating a tertiary, and the lack of targets whose destruction would necessitate the use of a three-stage weapon.
- A member of a Roman Catholic third order; a layperson who participates in activities similar to those engaged in by men and women who take religious vows (respectively the first and second orders), and who may wear some elements of an order's habit such as a scapular.
adjective
- Of or pertaining to the first part of the Cenozoic era when modern flora and mammals appeared.
proper noun
- The first part of the Cenozoic era when modern flora and mammals appeared.
Definitions regrouped for readability · CC BY-SA 4.0
IPA pronunciation
/ˈtɝ.ʃiˌɛɹ.i/
Pronunciation used in the listening tip.
Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗Pronunciation varies by speaker and region. About these dictionary pronunciations.
In the pages of books
See this word in context.
And finally, how is it that the same Hawk-moth caterpillars, which to-day show oblique stripes, possessed longitudinal stripes in Tertiary times?
The climate probably passed from a tropical one, in early Tertiary times, to a milder or temperate one in Pliocene times.
More book examples (3)
Considerations of this kind gave a new impulse to the belief that man's existence might even date back into the Tertiary period.
In the oldest tertiary beds a few living shells may still be found in the midst of a multitude of extinct forms.
Although complicated with tertiary syphilis, the woman made a fair recovery, and eight weeks later she walked into a doctor's office.