I didn’t know there was a word for that

If a duel is combat or a contest between two people, what do you call it when there are three people involved?

Nancy Friedman points us to the word we need: truel.

Used mostly in game theory, truel was coined by mathematician Martin Shubik in a 1954 article, ""Does the Fittest Necessarily Survive?" It's a portmanteau of trio (or perhaps "three-way") and duel that assumes that duel has a root meaning "two," as in "duo." However, "duel" in fact is a shortening of an Old Latin word for "war," duellum, and truel ambiguously suggests a root of true.

It seems that, no matter the concept, there’s a word in English that fits.

Comments

[Lars Walker]

Classic example: The climax to "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly."