three cheers for

Idioms  

1. Good for, hurrah for, congratulations to, as in Three cheers for our mayor! Hip, hip, hooray! Why one should shout one's encouragement or approbation three times rather than two or four is unclear. A shouted cheer presumably originated as a nautical practice, if we are to believe Daniel Defoe in Captain Singleton (1720): “We gave them a cheer, as the seamen call it.” Three cheers was first recorded in 1751. The term is also used sarcastically, when one is not really offering congratulations, as in So you finally passed; well, three cheers for you.

---

Example Sentences

Three cheers for Ohio’s Buckeye Institute, which last week delivered its oral argument in front of the Sixth U.S.

From The Wall Street Journal

Three cheers for Cook as well, for she can bake!

From Literature

Appeared in the November 7, 2025, print edition as 'Three Cheers for Purgatory'.

From The Wall Street Journal

There were also loud chants of "three cheers for the King".

From BBC

And three cheers for those Van Nuys players recruited out of P.E. class.

From Los Angeles Times