English · Idiom Candidate

eternal triangle

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

A relationship between three people, where two are romantically involved with the third.

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Mối quan hệ giữa ba người, trong đó hai người có quan hệ tình cảm với người thứ ba

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: a triangle lasting forever

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

It it's, it's the eternal triangle they're the stuff of which novels and soap operas are made.

If more magazines published such articles we could learn from others ' experiences and take steps to help all victims of this eternal triangle.

British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “eternal triangle” mean?

A relationship between three people, where two are romantically involved with the third. Literally: a triangle lasting forever

Is “eternal triangle” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.