Three is the number after two. Three children, three o'clock, in three days.
It is everywhere in idiom and structure. Third is the ordinal, third time lucky the proverb, and the rule of three the observation that groups of three are more satisfying in writing and comedy than groups of two or four. Note three-quarters, three-dimensional and threefold; the phrase three sheets to the wind, meaning drunk; and that many cultures put three at the centre of storytelling — three wishes, three bears, three little pigs — which is why English is so thick with it.
1numberthreeThe number after two.
“There were three of them and one umbrella.”
three is a number.
Old English thri goes back to Proto-Indo-European treyes, and the relatives are unmistakable across the family: Latin tres, Greek treis, Russian tri, Sanskrit trayas. It is one of the numbers that proves the whole family tree at a glance.
Middle English
thre
English, today
three
From Middle English thre. From Middle English thre, threo, thrie, thri, from Old English þrī, from Proto-West Germanic þrīʀ, from Proto-Germanic þrīz, from Proto-Indo-European tréyes. a doublet of tres and trey. Cognate with German drei, Albanian tre, Armenian երեք, Latin trēs, Latvian trīs, Lithuanian trỹs, Greek τρεῖς, cu трьѥ, and others.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA