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PlainSpell

tryst

/tɹɪst/noun, verb

tryst is a noun meaning “A prearranged meeting or assignation, now especially between lovers to meet at a specific place and time” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled T-R-Y-S-T and has one syllable, and it appears about once in every 3 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of tryst is trysts.

What does tryst mean?

noun

  1. 1

    A prearranged meeting or assignation, now especially between lovers to meet at a specific place and time.

    If someone trusts you, what is lost if you betray that trust? As Scarlett is tempted to see it, sometimes nothing at all. If her husband remains ignorant of her tryst, then his trust in her will remain intact. ‘No one gets hurt’ runs her re

  2. 2

    obsoleteA mutual agreement, a covenant.

  3. 3

    ScotlandA market fair, especially a recurring one held on a schedule, where livestock sales took place.

verb

  1. 1

    To make a tryst; to agree to meet at a place.

  2. 2

    To arrange or appoint (a meeting time etc.).

  3. 3

    To keep a tryst, to meet at an agreed place and time.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce tryst?

  • /tɹɪst/
  • /tɹaɪst/

Tryst has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-tryst.ogg, En-au-tryst.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of tryst

  • trysts plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • trysting participle, present
  • trysted participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is tryst?

Tryst appears about once in every 3 million words in written English, the 49,368th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Tryst in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchrendez-vous, rendez-vous d'amour, rendez-vous galant (prearranged meeting, now especially between…)
GermanStelldichein, Verabredung, Rendezvous, Schäferstündchen (prearranged meeting, now especially between…), Vereinbarung ((obsolete) a mutual agreement, a covenant)
Portugueseencontro (prearranged meeting, now especially between…)
Spanishcita, encuentro amoroso, cita amorosa (prearranged meeting, now especially between…), convenio ((obsolete) a mutual agreement, a covenant)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does tryst come from?

From Middle English tryst, trist, from Old French triste, tristre (“waiting place, appointed station in hunting”), probably from a North Germanic source such as Old Norse treysta (“to make safe, secure”), from traust (“confidence, trust, security, help, shelter, safe abode”), from Proto-Germanic *traustą (“trust, shelter”), from Proto-Indo-European *deru-, *dreu-, *drū- (“to be firm, be solid”). Doublet of trust, see there for more.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).