[Ads-l] throuple

[Laurence Horn]

Old (tricorner) hat.  It’s been around from way back in the last century, although it didn’t go mainstream—to the extent it has—for another 20 years. Seems like it’s closer to ménage à trois than to threesome, and I won’t touch “threelationship”.  This is from dictionary.com’s take:

Evidence for _throuple_ comes as early as 1994 in an internet Usenet discussion of non-traditional relationships. _Throuple_ saw a smattering of uses online in the 2000s, but it was in 2014 that Stephen Colbert popularized the term on his TV show _The Colbert Report_ in a story on a lesbian throuple's wedding.

https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/throuple/

LH

> On Oct 23, 2023, at 11:16 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> "We're a gay throuple who've spent over $170,000 on surrogacy and adoption
> — there are a lot of hidden costs, and it's more expensive than you think"
> 
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/were-gay-throuple-whove-spent-005905833.html
> 
> JL
> -- 
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org