Tripartite motto is the conventional English term for a motto, a slogan, or an advertising phrase which consists of three words or phrases that go together. Perhaps the best-known throughout the world is the motto of the French Revolution: Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. This is the verbal equivalent of the tricouleur or three-colored French flag. The English language took the word tricolor from the French, but did not get a similar one for such a motto. The Italians, however, use the term trinomio for this purpose.

In ancient Greece and Rome, such abstractions as liberty and justice were theologized. Hence the earliest tripartite mottoes are lists of the names of goddesses: Eunomia, Dike, and Eirene. These Late Greek goddesses, respectively Good Order, Justice, and Peace were collectively referred to by the Romans as the Horae. Their list is remarkably similar to the unpretentious Canadian motto, Peace, Order, and Good Government. The Romans had Concordia, Salus, and Pax, collectively called the Fortunae. The names of these mean Fraternity, Health, and Peace. Such deities differ from those who account for more cosmological matters, as they are first abstract concepts and only deities for vulgar comprehension of their importance.

From the eighteenth century, the tripartite motto was originally political. John Locke's Life, Liberty, and Property was adapted by Thomas Jefferson when he wrote the Declaration of Independence into Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness , which has become the American equivalent of the French one listed above. Later the form was used for strident fascist patter, such as Fascist Italy's Credere! Obbedire! Combattere! This means Believe! Obey! Fight!

But the form can be used as a real motto, that is, for inspiration and resolve. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has an initialistic motto: Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity, while the US Military Academy at West Point has Duty, Honor, Country.

Very often they derive from a turn of oratory in a speech. One example of a profound one is Abraham Lincoln's of the people, by the people, for the people in his Gettysburg Address, while an example of a trivial one is Spiro Agnew's Acid, Abortion, and Amnesty in a speech against George McGovern's candidacy in 1972.

These are common throughout Western civilization, but also appear in other cultures. The Japanese said that during their boom years, illegal immigrants performed the work that was Kiken, Kitsui, Kitanai, or Dangerous, Difficult, (and/or) Dirty.