third-rate
noun1
Government, Military, Nautical, Politics, Transport, War UK, Historical A third-rate ship of the line.
- Related terms
- two-decker
third-rate
adj1
Government, Military, Nautical, Politics, Transport, War UK, Historical Of a Royal Navy ship of the line in the Napoleonic Era: having 64–80 guns across two gun decks, a complement of 500–650, and weighing approximately 1,750 tons burthen.
2
Idiomatic Poor, shoddy; less than second-rate.
- He was smoking a cherry-wood pipe, and looked on the whole as if he had borrowed his outfit from the wardrobe of a third-rate dramatic company.1913, Norman Lindsay, A Curate in Bohemia, Sydney: N.S.W. Bookstall Co., published 1932, page 96:
- I consider it to now be a third-rate service run without any excuses being offered.2022 December 14, Barry Doe, “NRT review meets Christmas deadlines”, in RAIL, number 972, page 40:
- Related terms
- fifth-rate, first-rate, fourth-rate, second-rate, sixth-rate