to get to third base
2
9.9
- phrasal verb
- Offensive
:
llegar a la tercera base
- Did you ever like... you know, get to third base... like, finger someone?
Examples
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After months of flirting, I was excited when he said we could finally get to third base during our next outing.
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- What, did ya get to third base?
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The issue couldn't possibly be up for real debate, to my mind: either you were a baby-killer slut, or you behaved like a proper Christian woman and only let him get to third base.
Blog text (33) -
During their date, they finally got to third base after spending hours getting to know each other.
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At the party, they were laughing and having fun, and it looked like they might get to third base by the end of the night.
Antonyms
How Intimate
Surface Forms
Morphology
Literally the phrase describes arriving at 'third base' in baseball, but the idiomatic meaning—reaching a particular level of sexual intimacy—depends on a culturally specific baseball-to-sexuality metaphor. This metaphorical mapping is not predictable from the constituent words alone, so a B1 learner who knows the words but not the idiom would not reliably infer the intended meaning.
Etymology
The idiom get to third base comes from baseball, where a runner who reaches third base is very close to 'home'. People used that running picture for dating, so get to third base came to mean reaching a later level of physical closeness (kissing and touching below the waist) — in other words, 'to reach a certain level of physical intimacy' but not intercourse.