Definition of "tierce"

tierce

/ˈtɪəs/

noun
plural tierces
1. (obsolete) A third.
2. (religion, Roman Catholicism) Synonym of terce: the third canonical hour or its service.
3. (now historical) A measure of capacity equal to a third of a pipe, or a cask or other vessel holding such a quantity; a cask larger than a barrel, and smaller than a hogshead or a puncheon, in which wine or salt provisions, rice, etc., are packed for shipment.
  Quotations
  He then gave me a large piece of silver coin, such as I never had seen or had before, and told me to get ready for the voyage, and he would credit me with a tierce of sugar, and another of rum […] .
  1789, Olaudah Equiano, chapter 6, in The Interesting Narrative, volume I
  Have an eye to the molasses tierce, Mr. Stubb; it was a little leaky, I thought.
  1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 22”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley
  Again, by 28 Hen. VIII, cap. 14, it is re-enacted that the tun of wine should contain 252 gallons, a butt of Malmsey 126 gallons, a pipe 126 gallons, a tercian or puncheon 84 gallons, a hogshead 63 gallons, a tierce 41 gallons, a barrel 31.5 gallons, a rundlet 18.5 gallons.
  1882, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, page 205
4. (music) The third tone of the scale. See mediant.
5. (card games) A sequence of three playing cards of the same suit. Tierce of ace, king and queen is called tierce-major.
6. (fencing) The third defensive position, with the sword hand held at waist height, and the tip of the sword at head height.
  Quotations
  [W]e behold two men with lion-look, with alert attitude, side foremost, right foot advanced; flourishing and thrusting, stoccado and passado, in tierce and quart; intent to skewer one another.
  1837, Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, (please specify the book or page number)
7. (heraldry) An ordinary that covers the left or right third of the field of a shield or flag.
8. (obsolete) One sixtieth of a second, i.e., the third in a series of fractional parts in a sexagesimal number system. (Also known as a third.)