Trio

How to spell trio

4 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce trio

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does trio mean?

1. nounA set or group of three people or things.

Trio in a sentence

• The trio of friends shared a flat near the city centre.

• A jazz trio performed in the hotel lobby every evening.

Where does trio come from?

Language of origin: Italian

This word came into English in the late 1700s from Italian, where 'trio' described a piece of music for three performers. The Italians built it on the Latin root 'tres', meaning 'three', deliberately shaping it to echo the older word 'duo' for a pair. The musical sense came first, and the broader meaning of any group of three followed soon after. The same 'tri-' element that means 'three' runs through familiar relatives such as 'triangle', 'triple', and 'tricycle', so the spelling is unusually transparent. Because the word ends in a clean '-o' and keeps the simple 'tri-' stem, it carries none of the doubled letters or silent traps that snag writers in longer borrowings.

How the word is built

• tri- (three)
• -o (noun suffix, from Italian)