What is the difference between a trisomic and a triploid organism?

Question

and which of these is likely to show the most deleterious effects of its chromosomal imbalance?

Answer 1

trisomy is where an organism has three of one chromosome. triploidy is where an organism has three of every chromosome. triploidy is more chromosomally imbalanced.

Answer 2

Triploidy is more serious. It means three copies of each chromosome. Trisomic on the other hand is a description of a chromosome that has three copies, e.g. chromosome 21 trisomy (down's syndrom), ie only chromosome 21 has 3 copies, the rest of the autosomous chromosomes have 2 copies.