trivium

[ triv-ee-uh m ]

/ ˈtrɪv i əm /

(during the Middle Ages) the lower division of the seven liberal arts, comprising grammar, rhetoric, and logic.

Compare quadrivium.

Origin of trivium

1795–1805; < Medieval Latin, special use of Latin trivium public place, literally, place where three roads meet. See trivial

trivial, trivial name, trivialism, triviality, trivialize, trivium, triweekly, trixie, trm, trna, tro

Such men as Anselm were educated on the Trivium and Quadrivium.

The History of Dartmouth College |Baxter Perry Smith
The Trivium was sometimes designated as logic and the Quadrivium as physic.

Woman under Monasticism |Lina Eckenstein
He was versed not less in the arts of the Trivium than in the sciences of the Quadrivium.

Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 |Various
A century later the parliamentary commissioners introduced mathematics into the trivium where it replaced grammar.

Cambridge |Mildred Anna Rosalie Tuker

Rhetoric, the second branch of the Trivium, bore that vague relationship to grammar which it bears in modern parlance.

The Mediaeval Mind (Volume I of II) |Henry Osborn Taylor

trivium

/ (ˈtrɪvɪəm) /

(in medieval learning) the lower division of the seven liberal arts, consisting of grammar, rhetoric, and logic Compare quadrivium

C19: from Medieval Latin, from Latin: crossroads; see trivial