tresayle
tresayle noun: a grandfather's grandfather; a great-great-grandfather.
Noun
tresayle (plural tresayles)
- A grandfather's grandfather; a great-great-grandfather.
- If the abatement happened on the death of one's grandfather or grandmother, then an assise of mort d'ancestor no longer lies, but a writ of ayle or de avo: if on the death of the great-grandfather or great-grandmother, then a writ of be sayle, or de proavo: but if it mounts one degree higher, to...1853, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, page 148
- If any one wishes to speak of a great-great-grandfather (tresayle) through some side line, as his grandmother’s mother’s father, he has to use an explanatory mode like the above.1874 February 4, W. H. Whitmore, “A New System of Denoting Relationship”, in The New-England Historical and Genealogical Register, volume XXVIII, Boston, Mass.: […] the Society’s House, […]...
Examples of tresayle in a sentence
- His maternal grandmother was Christiana, daughter of Thomas Boston, V.D.M., whose ancestry is traced back five generations to her tresayle, Andrew Boston, born in Ayre, Scotland, about 1597.1877 July, John Ward Dean, Notices of Recent Publications from the Historical and Genealogical Register for July, 1877, page 12:
- […]in 1834, he prefixes to his diary a record of his ancestors, running back four generations to his tresayle, or great-great-grandfather, Joseph Towne, living in Topsfield, 1684.1878, John Ward Dean, Sketch of the Life of William Blanchard Towne, A.M., Founder of the Towne Memorial Fund of the New-England Historic...
Forms of tresayle
| plural | tresayles |
|---|
Origin of tresayle
From Middle French trisayeul, from Latin tris, tres (“three”) + French aïeul (“grandfather”). Compare besaiel, and see ayle.
Words formed from tresayle
- writ of tresayle
Questions about tresayle
- What does tresayle mean?
- Tresayle means a grandfather's grandfather; a great-great-grandfather.
- How do you use tresayle in a sentence?
- His maternal grandmother was Christiana, daughter of Thomas Boston, V.D.M., whose ancestry is traced back five generations to her tresayle, Andrew Boston, born in Ayre, Scotland, about 1597.
- What part of speech is tresayle?
- Tresayle is a noun.
- What is the plural of tresayle?
- The plural of tresayle is tresayles.
Words near tresayle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tresayle (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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “tresayle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tresayle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.