third wheel

English

Alternative forms

• 3rd wheel (abbreviation)

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

third wheel (plural third wheels)

1. (idiomatic) An individual or object that serves no useful purpose.
2. (idiomatic) An unwanted third party accompanying two people on a date.

Synonyms

• fifth wheel, gooseberry (British)

Translations

person or thing that serves no useful purpose

Chinese: Mandarin: 電燈泡／电灯泡 (zh) (diàndēngpào) Dutch: vijfde wiel aan de wagen n, vijfde rad aan de wagen n Finnish: painolasti (fi) German: fünftes Rad am Wagen n Hungarian: harmadik kerék Italian: ultima ruota del carro f Polish: piąte koło u wozu (pl) n Romanian: a cincea roată la căruță f Russian: третий лишний (ru) (tretij lišnij) Serbo-Croatian: Cyrillic: тринаесто прасе Roman: trinaesto prase Spanish:

unwanted third party accompanying two people on a date

Albanian: please add this translation if you can Armenian: please add this translation if you can Chinese: Cantonese: 電燈膽／电灯胆 (din6 dang1 daam2) Mandarin: 電燈泡／电灯泡 (zh) (diàndēngpào) Dutch: please add this translation if you can Esperanto: please add this translation if you can Finnish: kolmas pyörä (fi) French: tenir la chandelle (fr), cinquième roue du carrosse (fr) f Greek: please add this translation if you can Hebrew: גלגל שלישי m (galgál shlishí) Hungarian: gyertyatartó (hu), harmadik kerék Indonesian: obat nyamuk (id) Irish: éan corr m Italian: terzo incomodo Japanese: please add this translation if you can Korean: please add this translation if you can Mongolian: please add this translation if you can Polish: przyzwoitka (pl) f, piąte koło u wozu (pl) n Portuguese: vela (pt) f Romanian: please add this translation if you can Russian: тре́тий ли́шний (ru) m (trétij líšnij) Slovak: please add this translation if you can Slovene: please add this translation if you can Spanish: sujetavelas m or f (Spain), mal tercio m (Mexico), sapo (es) m (Cuba), violinista (es) m or f (Latin America), chaperón, paleta (es), lamparita (es) f (Venezuela) Swedish: tredje hjul n Thai: please add this translation if you can Turkish: please add this translation if you can Uzbek: please add this translation if you can Vietnamese: trà xanh, tiểu tam (vi), người thứ ba, con giáp thứ 13 (vi) Welsh: olwyn sbâr f

See also

• two's company, three's a crowd