Tricolon

A tricolon is a series of three words, phrases or clauses of similar length and structure, used for rhythm and emphasis, as in 'I came, I saw, I conquered'.

"I came, I saw, I conquered." Julius Caesar's three short clauses march in step. Each has the same shape, and together they feel complete. That is a tricolon.

Examples

• "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
• "Government of the people, by the people, for the people."
• "Blood, toil, tears and sweat." (Churchill's actual phrase has four, but is often misremembered as three.)
• "Stop, look and listen."
• "Veni, vidi, vici."

Why three

Three gives the ear a pattern and a payoff. The first item sets up, the second confirms and the third completes or surprises. A twist on the third, as in a joke ("He was tall, dark and late"), gets a laugh.

Variations

• Tricolon crescens. Each item grows longer or stronger, building to a peak.
• Tricolon with a twist. The third item breaks the pattern for effect.
• With or without conjunctions. Dropping them speeds the series up, as in asyndeton. Adding them slows it down, as in polysyndeton.

The structure rests on parallelism, the matching of grammatical form.

Why it matters to a writer or editor

A tricolon is one of the most useful tools for a sentence that needs to land. It is also easy to overuse. If every paragraph ends on a list of three, the reader hears the trick. Vary your series, using two or four where the content calls for it, and make sure the three items are really distinct. A list of three near-synonyms is padding, not rhetoric. See anaphora for repetition at the start of each part.

Frequently asked questions

What is a tricolon crescens?

A tricolon in which each part is longer or stronger than the last, building to a climax. 'Government of the people, by the people, for the people' is a famous example.

Why is three so effective?

Three is the smallest number that makes a pattern. Two is a pair, and three establishes a rhythm that the ear expects to finish.

Is a tricolon the same as the rule of three?

Close. The rule of three is the general principle that threes feel complete and memorable. A tricolon is the formal rhetorical device built on it.