third degree

a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.

an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance.

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Collins

World English Dictionary

third degree

—n
	informal torture or bullying, esp used to extort confessions or information

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

third degree

"intense interrogation by police," 1900, probably a reference to Third Degree of master mason in Freemasonry (1772), the conferring of which included an interrogation ceremony. Third degree as a measure of severity of burns (most severe) is attested from 1866, from Fr. (1832); in Amer.Eng., as a definition

of the seriousness of a particular type of crime (the least serious type) it is recorded from 1865.

Slang Dictionary

third degree definition

n.
a session of questioning, usually by the police. : Bart got the third degree, but—being the thoroughbred he is—he was a clam. , They gave Spike the third degree, but he refused to say anything.

Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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American Heritage

Idioms & Phrases

third degree

Intensive questioning or rough treatment used to obtain information or a confession, as in The detectives gave her the third degree, or Jim gave her the third degree when she came home so late. This term comes from freemasonry, where a candidate receives the third or highest degree, that of master mason, upon passing an intensive test. Dating from the 1770s, the phrase was transferred to other kinds of interrogation in the late 1800s.

Example sentences

These scientists used more than a third degree polynomial to fit the data.

She'd tipped over a lantern to set herself on fire, burning third degree holes into her sternum.

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Matching Quote

"The English public are not yet ripe to comprehend the essential difference between the reason and the understanding,—between a principle and a maxim—an eternal truth and a mere conclusion from a generalization of a great number of facts.... Suppose Adam watching the sun sinking under the horizon for the first time; he is seized with gloom and terror, relieved with scarce a ray of hope of ever seeing the glorious light again. The next evening when it declines, his hopes are stronger but mixed with fear, and even at the end of 1000 years, all that a man can feel, is hope and an expectation so strong as to preclude anxiety. Compare this in its highest degree with the assurance which you have that the two sides of any triangle are greater than the third. This demonstrated of one triangle is seen to be eternally true of all imaginable triangles. This is the truth perceived at once by the reason, wholly independently of experience. It is and must ever be so, multiply and vary the shapes and sizes of triangles as you may."

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge

third degree

third degree

third-de·gree

third degree definition