Three twins?

[HareBrain]

Does this not signify you could theoretically say "three of them"?

Not just "signify", but "prove beyond a shadow of a doubt"! Case closed.

Thanks, Danny. And if you ever see this person again, be sure to thank them too. (And if you see the twins, be sure to thanks those two.)

Triploids?

I am actually tempted by that one.

 

[Wayne Mack]

I heard someone not long ago (on espying twin toddler girls in town) say loudly
"Aw, look at the cute little twins, two of them"

Does this not signify you could theoretically say "three of them"?

This is simply redundancy, not an added constraint.

 

[THX1138]

How about Twined, as in tied together?

 

[Parson]

Personally, I'd only call somewhere a "twin city" if it were identical.

I suppose Minneapolis and St. Paul will forgive you if you don't call them "The Twin Cities." (Hence, "Minnesota Twins" baseball team.) Other than residing on opposite banks of the river in Minnesota there are considerable differences between them.

 

[tinkerdan]

If there were three born in one birth I'd call that triplets.
If two of them were there you could easily call them twins--but when the third one arrives, it becomes apparent that they are more than twins.
If there were there identical clones I'd call them three clones.
However:
If these are manufactured beings they might be like three I-phones from the factory they would be three I-phones.[Probably identical]
Now bringing them to life they might now have three different phone numbers to identify them--however, they are still three I-phones.

So three created(as in manufactured beings)brought to life would be three of whatever(name)you might give them.

If someone said 'three twins", I'd expect to see either six people that would be three sets of twins or three different people that might represent half of three sets of twins.

My small brain can't seem to find any justification to call three individual(whatever-s)that are similar; three twins.

If you did call out three twins; I'd assume that each of the three in the scene were different and had twins that were off somewhere else at the moment.

But that's just me again with the small brain.

 

[HareBrain]

These are three similar beings who were created by the same people, but in different places and slightly different times, and then linked together psychically. In that sense I think they are more like the three twinned cities than triplets from a birth.

But since calling them twins probably is confusing at best, I think I'm going to have the human characters call them triplets (or even triploids) as a kind of joke, and it sticks.

It would be easier if there were a word meaning "person from the same small group", but I can't think of one that fits these.

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

In a probably misguided attempt to be humorous I was going to suggest threesome, but in the course of my research I came across the word throuple
"an intimate consensual relationship that involves three people."
Just thought everyone should know

Not that either term helps

However, given the above definition, I like farntfar's suggestion of Triad
or one of its synonyms

TRIAD Synonyms: 17 Synonyms & Antonyms for TRIAD | Thesaurus.com

Find 17 ways to say TRIAD, along with antonyms, related words, and example sentences at Thesaurus.com, the world's most trusted free thesaurus.

www.thesaurus.com

 

[Harpo]

Trins?

 

[paranoid marvin]

Trins?

Haha, I was just about to post and suggest making a word up, probably with 'tri' in it. My 2 suggestions were going to be tritons and trins.

BTW I wouldn't suggest using twins. Saying there are 3 twins would either confused the reader or make them think there were six!

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

There is a word in computing, ternary, as in a ternary operator e.g. result = (a > b) ? a : b
but I see that it can also mean 'Composed of three'

ternary — definition, examples, related words and more at Wordnik

All the words

www.wordnik.com

I'm also quite liking ternion

ternion - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

en.wiktionary.org

 

[tinkerdan]

I too think that Triad would be a best bet for what you want.

t would be easier if there were a word meaning "person from the same small group", but I can't think of one that fits these.

 

[Paul Meccano]

In the story I'm writing I have three constructed creatures that have been given life. If there were two, I would definitely call them "twins", but I don't want to call them "triplets" because to me that strongly suggests birth. I'm sure I've come across sets of more than two individuals referred to as twins, but I can't confirm this with Google, and I've had a couple of readers query it. Can anyone back this up? (Or suggest an alternative word?)

Does trible work?

 

[nixie]

I like trinity, suggests three but not birth.

 

[Pyan]

Does trible work?

Only if you want trouble with them...

 

[paranoid marvin]

You could use 'threesome', although this might be misinterpreted.

 

[Swank]

I think if you asked a triplet if their siblings were fraternal or identical twins, there would be no confusion. While twin has a base meaning of a pair, in usage it means something closer to "clone" for identical twins, or acknowledges the unusual level of closeness that fraternal twins have from being together since before birth.

"The robot had three twins." This sounds reasonable to me, as long as they share something like being the same or being built and commissioned on the same day.

 

[paranoid marvin]

You could always have One-Of-Three, Two-of-Three and Three-of-Three. I don't think that's been used before.

 

[Ursa major]

linked together psychically

They sound like Borgs... er... namely: One of Three, Two of Three and Three of Three.


Damn: I didn't see PM's post.

 

[HareBrain]

Thanks for the recent responses.

You could always have One-Of-Three, Two-of-Three and Three-of-Three. I don't think that's been used before.

The issue isn't so much their names. The first of these three constructs (you can think of them as robots) was given the name Owlman, and when the characters discover there are two others they name them Owlman Two and Owlman Three. That's fine. But I had a sentence referring to Owlman two as "Owlman's twin", and given there are three of them I was questioning that. I wanted to know what would be better than "twin". I tried "triplet" but it never sat quite right, because my mind can't divorce it from actual birth.

Since @Swank seems to have come across that usage too, I think I'm going to stick with "twin".

 

[paranoid marvin]

They sound like Borgs... er... namely: One of Three, Two of Three and Three of Three.


Damn: I didn't see PM's post.

The hive-mind at work!