tripod

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a three-legged stand or support for a camera, instrument, vessel, or other object

   The photographer mounted the camera on a sturdy tripod.

2. 2
   noun

   a three-legged Martian fighting machine in H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds and later adaptations

   A towering tripod strode across the fields in the novel.

Borrowed through Latin tripus, tripodis from Ancient Greek tripous ("three-footed"), formed from tri- ("three") + pous, pod- ("foot"). Its literary use for Wells's Martian machines follows their three-legged construction.

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