Word.ws English Dictionary

Tristan

/ˈtɹɪstən/

Tristan proper noun: a male given name from the Celtic languages. Also the ellipsis of Tristan da Cunha.

Proper noun

Tristan (countable and uncountable, plural Tristans)

  1. A male given name from the Celtic languages.
    • After the first son had been properly named after the grandfather, the second caught the brunt of her few impulses, being named "Tristan", gleaned from medieval lore from her years at Wellesley.1978, Jim Harrison, Legends of the Fall, Dell, published 1994, →ISBN, page 201
    • 'His name is Tristan, by the way.' 'Tristan?' 'Yes. Oh, I should have told you. You must have wondered about my own queer name. It was my father. Great Wagnerian. It nearly ruled his life. It was music all the time – mainly Wagner.'2012 May 17, James Herriot, All Creatures Great and Small: The Classic Memoirs of a Yorkshire Country Vet, Pan Macmillan, →ISBN
  2. A knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend
  3. A female given name.

Also used as

Tristan is also the ellipsis of Tristan da Cunha.

Synonyms of Tristan

Forms of Tristan

pluralTristans

Origin of Tristan

Old French, the name of a knight, lover of Iseult in medieval romance Tristan and Iseult, from Celtic Drystan derived from drest meaning "riot" or "tumult".

Words formed from Tristan

Phrases with Tristan

Words that rhyme with Tristan

Questions about Tristan

What does Tristan mean?
Tristan means a male given name from the Celtic languages.
What part of speech is Tristan?
Tristan is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce Tristan?
Tristan is pronounced /ˈtɹɪstən/ (UK).

Words near Tristan in the dictionary

  1. trissyllables
  2. trist
  3. tristability
  4. tristable
  5. Tristach
  6. Tristan
  7. Tristan chord
  8. Tristan chords
  9. Tristan da Cunha
  10. Tristanesque
  11. Tristanian

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Tristan (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Tristan.wav.

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