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trio

UK/ˈtɹi.əʊ/US/ˈtɹioʊ/
nounC1Common in everyday speech and writing · #7,446 of 15,258mostly written

Other forms: trios

A trio is a group of three. A jazz trio, the trio of friends, a piano trio.

In music it names both the players and the piece written for them, and a piano trio is piano, violin and cello rather than three pianos, which surprises people. In general use it is simply a neat word for three of anything.

Definitions of trio

  1. 1nountrioA group of three.C1

    “A trio of young musicians played at the café every Friday night.”

trio is a group.

Where it comes from

Italian trio comes from tre, three, from Latin tres.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *tréyes

  2. Italian

    trio

  3. English, today

    trio

1715-25; borrowing from Italian trio.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

trio in the wild

  • William John Evans was an American jazz pianist and composer who worked primarily as the leader of his trio.

    Bill Evans

  • Cole's trio was the model for small jazz ensembles that followed.

    Nat King Cole

  • A piano trio is a group of piano and two other instruments, usually a violin and a cello, or a piece of music written for such a group.

    Piano trio

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.