third estate

American  

noun

1. the third of the three estates or political orders: the commons in France or England.

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third estate British  

noun

1. the third order or class in a country or society divided into estates, esp for representation in a parliament; the commons, townsmen, or middle class

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Etymology

Origin of third estate

First recorded in 1595–1605

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

third estate

And now the fencing has come to the Supreme Court, to the third estate.

From Washington Post ● May 10, 2022

The term had a special resonance with his Francophone audience because it recalled the third estate, “tiers-état,” of the French Revolution.

From Time ● Aug. 26, 2015

In the Constituent Assembly its members did not number more than 30 out of the 578 of the third estate.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 9 "Dagupan" to "David" by Various

Everybody who did not belong to either the clergy or nobility was regarded as being of the third estate.

From An Introduction to the History of Western Europe by James Harvey Robinson

Hence, to Saint Simon the antagonism between the third estate and the privileged classes took the form of an antagonism between "workers" and "idlers."

From Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Friedrich Engels

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