trivium

Definition

The lower division of the liberal arts in a medieval university; grammar, logic, and rhetoric.

Etymology

PIE word *tréyes Borrowed from Latin trivium.

Example Sentences

• "Surely some demon must possess the lad, / Who showed more wit than ever school-boy had, / And learned his Trivium thus without the rod; / But Alcuin said it was the grace of God."
• "As to the nature of his studies, there can be no doubt that he [Dante] went through the trivium (grammar, dialectic, rhetoric) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy) of the then ordinary university course."
• "We find in a broad survey of schools in general that there has also been a disposition to develop a special training in thought and expression either in the mother tongue (as in the Roman schools of Latin oratory), or in the culture tongue (as in Roman schools of Greek oratory), and we find the same element in the mediaeval trivium."

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