Definition of "tripos" []

• Any of the examinations for the B.A. degree with honors at Cambridge University in England. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Candidates for honours have to pass in certain additional subjects in their "little go", being then exempt from further examination until the final, or "tripos" -- a word sometimes derived from the three-legged stool on which candidates formerly sat, but now referring to the three classes into which successful candidates are divided."
• "Oxygen is indispensable for the life of the tissues, and its supply is dependent upon the integrity of the three organs mentioned, which have been called the tripos of life."
• "And Daniel in particular went on to use it as a home from home whento his surprise, I think, and certainly to ourshe eventually settled in Israel after his graduation, with a double first, in his tripos course of archaeology, anthropology and social and political science, from Cambridge."