tertian

1. 1.

   relating to symptoms (especially malarial fever) that appear every other day

   “tertian fever”
2. 2.

   of or relating to a tonal system based on major thirds

   “a tertian tonal system”

Questions about tertian

What does tertian mean?

tertian means "relating to symptoms (especially malarial fever) that appear every other day". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in tertian?

tertian has 3 syllables and divides as ter-ti-an under the regular spelling rules. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

Is tertian a common word?

tertian is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.