Art & MusicGreek → English
Trilogy
/ˈtrɪlədʒi/noun
A set of three connected works meant to be taken together.
The Greek roots
τρι-
tri-
three
λόγος
lógos
story, discourse
Literally: “three tellings”
The story of the word
At the Athenian dramatic festivals a tragedian competed with three linked plays, and τριλογία named the set. Exactly one survives complete, Aeschylus's Oresteia, which follows a single murder through three generations of consequence. English borrowed the word in the seventeenth century for literature and then handed it to publishers and studios, who now announce a trilogy before the second part exists.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
Same family
tetralogytriadlogicanthology
In a sentence
The trilogy runs to nineteen hundred pages and the third volume is the one people finish.