tristate

English

Etymology

From tri- +‎ state.

Adjective

tristate (not comparable)

1. Having, or pertaining to, three distinct states.

   This tristate logic deals with true, false, and unknown values.

2. Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a region in the United States where three state borders come to a single point.

   The event will be sponsored by several tristate businesses.

Noun

tristate (plural tristates)

1. (programming) A variable, etc. that can take any of three distinct values.
   • 2000, John Blankenship, C is for Control:

     The 4 input ports are simply tristates that can be addressed to enable the data from any one of them to be read by the standard input port of the printer interface.

   • 2010, Robert Love, Linux Kernel Development, page 14:

     Configuration options that control the build process are either Booleans or tristates.

2. (often capitalized) The area in some regions of the United States where three state borders come to a single point.

   The Tristate is on alert after a rash of home burglaries.

Related terms

• tristated

Anagrams

• attirest, attrites, rattiest, tartiest, titrates

Latin

Participle

trīstāte

1. vocative masculine singular of trīstātus