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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

trilemma.

A circumstance in which a choice must be made between three options that seem equally undesirable.

8 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/tɹaɪˈlɛmə/General-American, Received-Pronunciation
  1. A circumstance in which a choice must be made between three options that seem equally undesirable.

  2. A situation in which a choice must be made among three desirable options, only two of which are possible at the same time.

  3. An argument containing three alternatives, jointly exhaustive either under any condition(s) or under all condition(s) consistent with the universe of discourse of that argument, that each imply the same conclusion.

Where this word comes from

The word is modelled on dilemma, with di- (“two, twice, double”) replaced by tri- (“three”), equivalent to tri- + lemma.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.