Trident

"If you don't want to throw it away permanently, then you should invest in Loyalty. This common enchantment makes your trident come back to you. Riptide, which makes you lunge with your trident when you throw it (as long as you're in water, or it's raining) is also well worth seeking out!"

- Tom Stone

A trident is a spear-like weapon that can be used in melee or ranged combat.

Obtaining
Tridents are not craftable. They must be picked up as a drop from a killed drowned or using the command.

Drowned
15% of drowned $$, and 6.25% $$, spawn with a trident of random durability as their natural weapon, and they have an 8.5% chance of dropping the trident (increasing by 1% with each level of Looting). $$, drowned can also drop a trident as one of its normal drops. The trident has a 11% chance, 13% chance with Looting I, 15% chance with Looting II, and 17% chance with Looting III of dropping itself.

$$, a zombie converted to a drowned has a chance of carrying a trident that can be dropped. $$, only naturally-spawned drowned can spawn with a trident or have a chance of dropping one.

A trident dropped by a drowned has a chance to be enchanted.

Thrown tridents
Tridents thrown onto the ground by a player can be picked up. However, tridents thrown by drowned cannot be picked up.

Drowned
15% of drowned $$, and 6.25% $$, spawn with a trident as its natural weapon. It throws the trident at its opponent every 1.5 seconds, dealing damage in normal difficulty. A drowned can throw unlimited tridents, and these tridents cannot be picked up by the player.

A villager can be turned into a zombie villager if it is killed by a trident thrown by a drowned: the chance of conversion is 0% on Easy difficulty, 50% on Normal and 100% on Hard and Hardcore.

$$, a drowned can use the trident's melee attack if its target is within three blocks. The melee attack deals damage.

Melee attack
Pressing while holding a trident deals damage to both mobs and players. $$, tridents deal more base melee damage than an unenchanted diamond sword. $$, tridents deal more base melee damage. The trident's durability decreases by 1 when used as a melee weapon.

Ranged attack
Pressing and holding while holding a trident charges the trident. When released at full charge, the trident is thrown and deals damage to any entity that it hits. It flies on a ballistic trajectory similar to that of an arrow, but at 80% strength. If the trident hits a block, it sticks to the block, and if it hits an entity, it bounces and lands nearby. It is also blocked by shields and can be retrieved once it lands in the ground. Thrown tridents can trigger wooden buttons and pressure plates. A trident can be thrown at a chorus flower to break it, which causes the chorus flower to be dropped as an item.

$$, tridents can be used as ammunition in dispensers.

Tridents enchanted with Loyalty return to the thrower after hitting a mob or a block. Higher levels of the enchantment result in shorter recovery times. $$, throwing a trident enchanted with Loyalty into the void destroys it, while $$ it returns to the player. If a trident enchanted with Loyalty attempts to return to a player with no available inventory space, the trident floats near the player until inventory space becomes available.

Thrown tridents take 1 durability damage, regardless of whether it hit an entity or not. A thrown trident that has no remaining durability will not be able to be picked up and will not return to the player if enchanted with Loyalty.

Tridents enchanted with Riptide will launch the player a certain distance when thrown, with the distance increasing for higher enchantment levels. They can only be thrown if the player is standing in water or it is raining or snowing on the block they are standing on. If the player charges it, but walks into a nearby dry area, the charge is canceled. If the player throws a Riptide trident and collides with a mob, the mob will take melee damage (including critical damage if the player is falling). Tridents enchanted with Riptide take one durability damage upon throwing, and an additional -1 durability if it collides with an entity.

Unlike other projectiles, the trident does not slow down when thrown through water or lava.

$$, the Impaling enchantment affects all water mobs. $$, it deals extra damage to players and mobs in water or rain.

Unlike arrows, thrown tridents do not despawn.

Using Riptide, nearby players or mobs deal splash damage within an 8.25×8.25×4.25 cubical area. It stacks with the Impaling enchantment and Strength effect. Critical hits don't increase splash damage, but affect the target mob.
 * Magical damage

Oddly enough, $$, tridents can damage the ender dragon while resting on the bedrock fountain.

Damage
Thrown tridents and splashes deal damage. The damage remains the same regardless of the trident's speed. It has a faster charging speed than a bow or crossbow without enchantments.

Java Edition
$$, tridents have an attack speed of 1.1 and take ~0.91 seconds to recover.

Legacy Console and Bedrock editions
$$, tridents have no attack cooldown and do the following damage:

Elytra
A trident with the Riptide enchantment can be used to propel the elytra, but only in rainy weather, during snowy weather in certain biomes or while the player is in a body of water.

Impaling damage
$$, the Impaling enchantment deals extra damage to all water mobs. $$, it deals extra damage to players and mobs in water or rain.

Enchantments
Tridents can receive the following enchantments:
 * Notes
 * Trident vibrates
 * 0.9
 * Trident clangs
 * }
 * Trident vibrates
 * 0.9
 * Trident clangs
 * }
 * 0.9
 * Trident clangs
 * }
 * 0.9
 * Trident clangs
 * }
 * Trident clangs
 * }
 * Trident clangs
 * }
 * }
 * }
 * }
 * }
 * }
 * }

Entity data
Tridents have entity data associated with them that contain various properties of the entity.

Trivia

 * If a player throws a Loyalty-enchanted trident and the player's inventory subsequently fills, the trident hovers around or through the player's skin until an inventory slot opens, which it fills immediately. Multiple tridents can be 'queued' to re-enter the player's inventory in this manner.
 * $$ in Creative mode, sword enchantments can be applied to tridents. This includes Sharpness, Smite, Fire Aspect, and Looting. Sharpness, Smite, and Bane of Arthropods increases their damage against their specific mobs, as well.
 * Dropped tridents use the in-flight model, rather than the inventory icon.
 * Tridents in item frames use the in-flight model, and are off center.
 * $$, a piston moving a block with a trident thrown onto it moved the trident as well, damaging any mobs in the trident's path. This is considered player damage, and thus can be used in experience farms.