tripus

Meanings

1. A Bachelor of Arts appointed to make satirical strictures in humorous dispute with the candidates at a degree-awarding ceremony; tripos, prevaricator.
2. A vessel (usually a pot or cauldron) resting on three legs, often given as an ornament, a prize, or as an offering at a shrine to a god or oracle; often specifically, that such vessel upon which the priestess sat to deliver her oracles at the shrine to Apollo at Delphi; tripod.
3. The hindmost Weberian ossicle of the Weberian apparatus, touching the anterior wall of the swimbladder and connected by a dense, elongate ligament to the intercalarium.

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from Latin tripūs, from Ancient Greek τρίπους (trípous); doublet of tripod and teapoy. In the sense associated with Cambridge University, the Tripus is named after the three-legged stool on which he sat during the degree-awarding ceremony.