TERNARY • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Ternary

... common to the proximate natural group in which the Kind is included. If even those common characters are so numerous or so little familiar as to require a further extension of the same resource, we might, instead of a binary, adopt a ternary nomenclature, employing not only the name of the genus, but that of the next natural group in order of generality above the genus, commonly called the Family. This was done in the mineralogical nomenclature proposed by Professor Mohs. "The names framed by him were not composed ...

— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill