The Collaborative International Dictionary
Quadrivial \Quad*riv"i*al\, n. One of the four ``liberal arts'' making up the quadrivium.
Quadrivial \Quad*riv"i*al\, a. [L. quadrivium a place where four
ways meet; quattuor four + via way.]
Having four ways meeting in a point.
--B. Jonson.
Wiktionary
a. Having four ways meeting in a point. n. Any of the four "liberal arts" making up the quadrivium.
Usage examples of "quadrivial".
After this, providing you with the fourfold wings of the quadrivials that ye might be winged like the seraphs and so mount above the cherubim, we sent you to a friend at whose door, if only ye importunately knocked, ye might borrow the three loaves of the Knowledge of the Trinity, in which consists the final felicity of every sojourner below.
And for the other lectures, as of philosophy, logic, rhetoric, and the quadrivials (although the latter, I mean arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy, and with them all skill in the perspectives, are now smally regarded in either of them), the universities themselves do allow competent stipends to such as read the same, whereby they are sufficiently provided for, touching the maintenance of their estates, and no less encouraged to be diligent in their functions.