third hand
1
7.4
- noun
:
información de oídas
- I don't give too many details because I was young and not privy to most of what happened; I learned more second and third hand years later.
- second and third hand
There are people who are getting third hand reports and then embellishing them.
- There are people who are getting third hand reports and then embellishing them.
- Like from a first, second, third hand account of every miracle he did do you.
Examples
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It's not even claiming to be second or third hand; it's carefully worded to avoid any.
Blog text (25) -
Relying on third hand accounts can lead to misunderstandings and misinformation.
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There are people who are getting third hand reports and then embellishing them.
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But I cannot make a plan based on third-hand rumours.
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Why are we just getting this vague third-hand information?
Blog text (25) -
You're someone who heard a rumor third hand who thinks he's more credible than someone who witnessed the original incident.
Blog text (21) -
This is third-hand, but I happen to work with a guy married to a Honduran who's lived there in the past and is about to start another tenure there in education.
Blog text (15) -
When I read about this online for the first time, and given my only third-hand knowledge of Bertrand, it seemed really unlikely that he would knowingly take that kind of job, knowing who he was working for and what their acts and crimes have been.
Blog text (15) -
Oh, probably second- or third-hand accounts by people who weren't there and from historically unsupported documents that may well have been spun from whole cloth by people who could benefit from the consequences of people believing it.
Blog text (8) -
The journalist published a story based on third hand information, which he later had to retract.
Synonyms
38
7.7
Information from other people rather than from direct experience
5
3.3
Information received through another person rather than directly
2
2.9
By hearing it from someone else rather than directly
1
6.7
Comes through two people, not from the original person
Antonyms
How Direct
Surface Forms
Morphology
third + hand
The sense ‘information received indirectly’ can be partially inferred from combining the ordinal 'third' (indicating an additional step removed) with the idiomatic use of 'hand' as in 'second-hand' meaning not direct. However, a B1 learner who only knows the literal meanings ('third' = number three, 'hand' = body part) is unlikely to predict the non-literal sense of 'hand' without prior exposure to expressions like 'second-hand', so the relation is only partially transparent.
Etymology
Third hand may come from a simple picture: information passed from person to person like an object. If something is heard first hand it is 'direct', second hand means one person told you, and third hand means it was told again, so the news is more distant and 'less reliable'.