Third World

American  

noun

(sometimes lowercase)

1. the underdeveloped nations of the world, especially those with widespread poverty.

2. the group of developing nations, especially of Asia and Africa, that do not align themselves with the policies of either the U.S. or the former Soviet Union.

3. the minority groups within a nation or predominant culture.

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Third World British  

noun

1. Also called: developing world.  the less economically advanced countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America collectively, esp when viewed as underdeveloped and as neutral in the East-West alignment

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Third World Cultural  

1. The nonaligned nations — which are often developing nations — of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. They are in a “third” group of nations because they were allied neither with the United States nor with the former Soviet Union.

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third world Idioms  

1. Underdeveloped or developing countries, as in The conditions in our poorest rural areas resemble those in the third world. This expression originated in the mid-1900s, at first denoting those countries in Asia and Africa that were not aligned with either the Communist bloc nations or the non-Communist Western nations. Because they were for the most part poor and underdeveloped, the term was transferred to all countries with those characteristics, and later still to poorer groups within a larger prevailing culture.

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Compare meaning

How does third-world compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• First World vs. Third World

Example Sentences

In fact, on a midnight shift in Cheyenne Mountain, I even read Tom Clancy’s “Red Storm Rising,” which envisioned the Cold War gone hot, a Third World War gone nuclear.

From Salon • Dec. 7, 2025

Mr. Easterly is not a friend of rich-world technocrats or top-down dispensers of aid and omniscience who frequently fail to consult the very people—the Third World poor—for whose salvation they get paid handsomely.

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 7, 2025

"I'm not going to start the Third World War for you," he is reported to have told General Wesley Clark.

From BBC • Oct. 15, 2024

International financiers showed up once to monitor the budgeting, demanding proof that Sacramento could repay borrowed money, as if it were a Third World country.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 19, 2023

I was learning in the obvious academic ways, holding my own in classes, doing most of my studying in a quiet room at the Third World Center or in a carrel at the library.

From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama