Word.ws English Dictionary

Macdonald triad

Macdonald triad proper noun: a set of three behavioral characteristics — cruelty to animals, firesetting, and bedwetting past the age of five — claimed to be associated with later violent tendencies.

Proper noun

Macdonald triad

  1. A set of three behavioral characteristics — cruelty to animals, firesetting, and bedwetting past the age of five — claimed to be associated with later violent tendencies.

Origin of Macdonald triad

Named after John Macdonald (psychiatrist), who proposed it in the 1960s.

Questions about Macdonald triad

What does Macdonald triad mean?
Macdonald triad means a set of three behavioral characteristics — cruelty to animals, firesetting, and bedwetting past the age of five — claimed to be associated with later violent tendencies.
What part of speech is Macdonald triad?
Macdonald triad is a proper noun.

Words near Macdonald triad in the dictionary

  1. MacDiarmidian
  2. Macdoel
  3. Macdonald
  4. Macdonald polynomial
  5. Macdonald polynomials
  6. Macdonald triad
  7. Macdonaldian
  8. MacDonaldism
  9. macdonaldite
  10. MacDonaldites
  11. MacDonaldization

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Macdonald triad (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “Macdonald triad.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/macdonald_triad. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.