noun
- Law.
- the examination before a judicial tribunal of the facts put in issue in a cause, often including issues of law as well as those of fact.
- the determination of a person’s guilt or innocence by due process of law.
- the act of trying, testing, or putting to the proof.
- test; proof.
- an attempt or effort to do something.
- a tentative or experimental action in order to ascertain results; experiment.
- the state or position of a person or thing being tried or tested; probation.
- subjection to suffering or grievous experiences; a distressed or painful state: comfort in the hour of trial.
- an affliction or trouble.
- a trying, distressing, or annoying thing or person.
- Ceramics. a piece of ceramic material used to try the heat of a kiln and the progress of the firing of its contents.
adjective
- of, relating to, or employed in a trial.
- done or made by way of trial, proof, or experiment.
- used in testing, experimenting, etc.
- acting or serving as a sample, experimental specimen, etc.: a trial offer.
Idioms
- on trial,
- undergoing examination before a judicial tribunal.
- undergoing a probationary or trial period.
noun
-
- the act or an instance of trying or proving; test or experiment
- (as modifier)a trial run
- law
- the judicial examination of the issues in a civil or criminal cause by a competent tribunal and the determination of these issues in accordance with the law of the land
- the determination of an accused person’s guilt or innocence after hearing evidence for the prosecution and for the accused and the judicial examination of the issues involved
- (as modifier)trial proceedings
- an effort or attempt to do somethingwe had three trials at the climb
- trouble or grief
- an annoying or frustrating person or thing
- (often plural) a competition for individualssheepdog trials
- a motorcycling competition in which the skills of the riders are tested over rough ground
- ceramics a piece of sample material used for testing the heat of a kiln and its effects
- on trial
- undergoing trial, esp before a court of law
- being tested, as before a commitment to purchase
verb trials, trialling or trialled
- (tr) to test or make experimental use of (something)the idea has been trialled in several schools
noun grammar
- a grammatical number occurring in some languages for words in contexts where exactly three of their referents are described or referred to
- (modifier) relating to or inflected for this number
n.mid-15c., “act or process of testing,” from Anglo-French trial, noun formed from triet “to try” (see try). Sense of “examining and deciding a case in a court of law” is first recorded 1570s; extended to any ordeal by 1590s. As an adjectival phrase, trial-and-error is recorded from 1806. Trial balloon (1939) is congnate of French ballon d’essai. 1In the process of being tried, especially in a court of law. For example, He would be put on trial for the murder of his wife. [Early 1700s] 2As a test of something, on probation, as in They said we could take the vacuum cleaner on trial and return it if it was too noisy. [Early 1700s] In addition to the idioms beginning with trial
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