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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Ed Snible, post: 3230831, member: 82322&quot;]Sharp triobol!</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>No one knows the meaning of the triskeles.&nbsp; It is known from the bronze age.</p><p><br /></p><p>Both words are from the ancient Greek.</p><p><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/triskele" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/triskele" rel="nofollow">https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/triskele</a></p><p><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/triskelion" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/triskelion" rel="nofollow">https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/triskelion</a></p><p><br /></p><p>In numismatics, &#039;triskeles&#039; is singular. For example, John Melville Jones (<i>A Dictionary of Ancient Greek Coins</i>) defines it as “... <i>a</i> device formed or based upon three legs joined at the hip...”. [emphasis mine].</p><p><br /></p><p>Wikipedia and Wiktionary considers the word to be &#039;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triskele" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triskele" rel="nofollow">triskele</a>&#039;. &#039;<a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/triskeles" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/triskeles" rel="nofollow">triskeles</a>&#039; is the plural of &#039;triskele&#039;. This isn&#039;t merely a Wikipedia error, the <i>Oxford English Dictionary</i> considers the word to be &#039;triskele&#039;, although it undermines itself because of one its reference citations uses &#039;triskeles&#039; in a singular context.</p><p><br /></p><p>Google Books knew of 846 mentions of &#039;triskele&#039; and 780 mentions of &#039;triskeles&#039; when I checked a few years ago. Some of the triskeles mentions are from numismatic fields, which use the word as a singular, and others are clearly using it as a plural (for example, discussing “scrolls and triskeles”.</p><p><br /></p><p>The earliest English reference in Google Books to &#039;triskele&#039; is 1868, <i>The runic hall in the Danish old-northern museum</i> by George Stephens. The earliest singular reference to &#039;triskeles&#039; is an article on acquisitions of the British Museum in <i>The Classical Review</i> from 1889.</p><p><br /></p><p>I discussed this topic in a thread on <a href="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=59564.0" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=59564.0" rel="nofollow">FORUM&#039;s Classical Numismatics Discussion Board</a> where it came out that the Greek word <i>Tri-skelês</i> is an adjective and thus neither singular nor plural. A similar Greek word that made it into English as an adjective is &#039;isosceles&#039; used to describe triangles.</p><p><br /></p><p>I believe there are enough authorities using &#039;triskeles&#039; as a singular to get it into the <i>OED</i> and other dictionaries as a variant spelling of &#039;triskele&#039;. Certainly Barclay Head uses it as singular, and the <i>OED</i> cites him as an authority under &#039;triskeles&#039; (for the similar word &#039;triskelion&#039;). I think we have a case of the same Greek word being borrowed into English twice — with different spellings![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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