trifecta

English

WOTD – 10 May 2007

Etymology

From tri- +‎ (per)fecta.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tɹaɪˈfɛktə/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

Noun

trifecta (plural trifectas)

1. (US, Australia, New Zealand) A bet in which the bettor must select the first three placegetters of a race in the order in which they finish.
   • 2006, Vincent Conti, Thoroughbred Horse Racing Systems and Methodologies, page 9:

     The conservative player will play the exacta box bet and the occasional trifecta box wager.

   • 2010, Leonard A. Asimow, Mark M. Maxwell, Probability and Statistics with Applications: A Problem Solving Text, page 10:

     In a trifecta, you must wager on three horses: the one that finishes first (win), the one that finishes second (place), and the one that finishes third (show) in order.

2. (US, Australia, New Zealand) The attainment of three important achievements, qualities, etc.
3. (US, Australia, New Zealand, by extension) A set of three related things, often things that cause problems.
   • 2007, Michael Morrison, Head First JavaScript, page 525:

     Along with runtime errors, two other errors we saw earlier round out the JavaScript bug trifecta: syntax errors, logic errors, and runtime errors.

   • 2011, Beatriz Scaglia, The Trifecta of Evil and the Crisis of Faith: Devil, Satan, and Lucifer‎^[1]:
   • 2011, Markus Horner, Consistently Persistent: Living with the Tourette Trifecta‎^[2]:
   • 2013 November 27, Emily Jane O'Dell, “Deep cover [print version: International Herald Tribune Magazine, 2013, p. 47]”, in The New York Times‎^[3]:

     I might never have learned my name or met my birth family if I hadn't ended up in the hospital in Rhode Island in 2007, after traveling to a trifecta of malaria hotspots: Mali, Egypt and Colombia.

4. (US politics) The complete legislative and executive control of state or federal government by one party: governorship, the upper house, and the lower house of state or federal legislatures. The party that holds all three positions of power is said to have a trifecta.

Related terms

• perfecta
• superfecta
• quadfecta

Translations

A bet on the first three places of a race in the order

• Finnish: troikka (fi)
• French: tiercé (fr) m
• German: Dreierwette (de) f
• Italian: tris (it) m
• Spanish: trifecta f (Arg., Chile)

Control by one party of the federal government

• Finnish: trifekta

See also

• exacta

Spanish

Noun

trifecta f (plural trifectas)

1. trifecta

Further reading

• “trifecta”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014