thirds

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of third.

   The recipe splits the batter into three even thirds.

   Singers often harmonize a melody in thirds.

   Note

   One spelling carries several different meanings of third, and only context chooses among them. With a number in front it is a fraction (two thirds of the batter). In music it names intervals, so voices moving "in thirds" stay a third apart. Finishing places and golf handicaps can be counted the same way. Keep it apart from the extra helping, which looks plural but is never counted.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   A third serving of food for one person, or a third refill of coffee or another drink.

   By the time he reached thirds, the platter was nearly empty.

   The waiter kept pouring thirds of coffee for the tired travelers.

   Note

   Table talk counts helpings upward, and thirds is the step after seconds. In Sean Clancy's The Fledgling (2012), everyone helps themselves to seconds and Meren "even went for thirds," because he is partial to good food. It takes no article and no number: you have thirds or go for thirds, never "a third" or "two thirds" in this sense.

3. 3
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of third.

   Note

   The present-tense form for he, she or it, spelled exactly like the plural noun. Only the sentence tells them apart. Two verbs stand behind it. One divides something into three equal parts (she thirds the timber). The other is informal meeting talk, where someone thirds a proposal that has already been seconded, adding a third voice of agreement.

   If Ana seconds the motion and Raj thirds it, we can vote.

   Whenever someone seconds an idea, he jokingly thirds it.

4. 4
   nounhistoricaluncountable

   Under certain local laws, the third part of a deceased husband's estate that his widow was entitled to enjoy during her life.

   The widow claimed her thirds before the estate passed to the eldest son.

   Local custom allowed her to draw income from her thirds until her death.

   Similardower

   Note

   Inheritance law's name for a widow's share, now met mainly in older legal writing and histories of property. The right was a life interest. She could enjoy the land or its income while she lived, but her thirds were not hers to pass on. The right held only where local law granted it, so a claim to thirds depended on place as much as on marriage.

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