# Is there a word to mean, e.g., "divisible by three"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 19, 2009, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-to-mean-e-g-divisible-by-three/486581 "2009-02-19T18:51:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2016, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-to-mean-e-g-divisible-by-three/486581/41 "2016-02-09T19:51:04Z")
The answer is still the same as it was in 2009, Thridding [http://www.yorkshireridings.org/news/the-yorkshire-ridings.html](http://www.yorkshireridings.org/news/the-yorkshire-ridings.html) > **[Allerton Bywater](https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xCZ3VJqUTDIC&pg=PA27&lpg=PA27&dq=thridding&source=bl&ots=-eEw6Dzvd7&sig=Q2VReqLm7wvDMIrhx1JA2O1Z5bQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj-utzxuuvKAhXIoA4KHbXzAUo4HhDoAQgbMAA#v=onepage&q=thridding&f=false)** > > Literary Nonfiction. Biography and memoir. ALLERTON BYWATER by Bruce Haywood is a charming and thoughtful gaze back across the Atlantic at a very specific place in time--the author's home ground, an English coal mining town of the 1930s and 40s. The... ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2016, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-to-mean-e-g-divisible-by-three/486581/42 "2016-02-10T02:44:39Z")
How about **triven** or **treeven**? And numbers not evenly divisible by 3 are **trodd**. ---
**Author:** ![dunkleosteus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dunkleosteus/32/9331_2.png) [@dunkleosteus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dunkleosteus)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2016, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-to-mean-e-g-divisible-by-three/486581/43 "2016-02-10T18:54:53Z")
It sounds as if many people are making up words for this. At best, they’re referencing words that someone else has made up, with the age of the word lending credibility. I would suggest something like “trifactor” implying three is a factor. In this system, even numbers are “bifactor”, divisible by 4 might be “quadfactor”, or maybe “tetrafactor” ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2016, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-to-mean-e-g-divisible-by-three/486581/44 "2016-02-10T19:16:05Z")
The good folk of Yorkshire, all 5.3 million might be surprised to find that the word ‘riding’ and its antecedent ‘thridding’ were made up, given that we’ve lived here for a around a thousand years give or take a decade or two. ---
**Author:** ![dunkleosteus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dunkleosteus/32/9331_2.png) [@dunkleosteus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dunkleosteus)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2016, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-to-mean-e-g-divisible-by-three/486581/45 "2016-02-10T21:08:59Z")
> [@casdave](#): > > The good folk of Yorkshire, all 5.3 million might be surprised to find that the word ‘riding’ and its antecedent ‘thridding’ were made up, given that we’ve lived here for a around a thousand years give or take a decade or two. There are exceptions, yes. However, I think that unless a word is widely (geographically) known, it’s history of use (or lack of) isn’t as relevant. Surely 5.3 million is a large number, but if a [different] word had fallen entirely out of use, raising it from death isn’t any better than inventing a new word. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-to-mean-e-g-divisible-by-three/486581/46 "2016-02-11T15:12:10Z")
I think you will find the use of the word riding is in very wide use, look in any atlas ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-to-mean-e-g-divisible-by-three/486581/47 "2016-02-11T16:08:59Z")
“Riding” comes from a noun meaning “third part”. It never meant, and does not now mean, “divisible by three”. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-to-mean-e-g-divisible-by-three/486581/48 "2016-02-11T16:43:12Z")
…and is derived from ‘thridding’, which is something divisible by three, as I posted a few years ago in this thread, or rather its that act of dividing into three ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-to-mean-e-g-divisible-by-three/486581/49 "2016-02-11T17:34:17Z")
“Something divisible by three” or “the act of dividing into three” do not mean the same thing as “divisible by three”. Nouns are not adjectives. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-to-mean-e-g-divisible-by-three/486581.md?page=2)