Trilling
name, noun, verb ·2 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The production of a trill sound.
"It was pretty close quarters, but I had conversed with her at such length during the nest-building time, that she knew my voice and soon began to answer me in low trillings — trillings that could scarcely be heard — and turn her head to look at me in a friendly way."
- 2 A compound crystal consisting of three individuals.
"Diametrically opposed rays of these stellate groups are of the same optical orientation and the twins are, therefore, trillings ( fig. 29 )."
- 3 One of three offspring born at the same birth; a triplet. obsolete, rare
"Every 67th lying-in woman has twins, every 5333rd has trillings, and only every 150,000th has fourlings."
- 1 present participle and gerund of trill form-of, gerund, participle, present
- 1 A surname.
Example
More examples"I lifted my head; somewhere in the distance was the cheerful trilling of a chaffinch."
Etymology
Compare German Drilling.
More for "trilling"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.