tristate

tri- +‎ state

tristate (not comparable)

1. Having, or pertaining to, three distinct states.

   This tristate logic deals with true, false, and unknown values.

2. Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a region in the United States where three state borders come to a single point.

   The event will be sponsored by several tristate businesses.

tristate (plural tristates)

1. (programming) A variable, etc. that can take any of three distinct values.
   • 2000, John Blankenship, C is for Control

     The 4 input ports are simply tristates that can be addressed to enable the data from any one of them to be read by the standard input port of the printer interface.

   • 2010, Robert Love, Linux Kernel Development (page 14)

     Configuration options that control the build process are either Booleans or tristates.

2. (often capitalized) The area in some regions of the United States where three state borders come to a single point.

   The Tristate is on alert after a rash of home burglaries.

• attirest, attrites, rattiest, tartiest, titrates

tristāte

1. vocative masculine singular of tristātus