triple threat

noun

1. an expert in three different fields or in three different skills in the same field.

2. Football.,  a back who is proficient at running, passing, and punting.

   The triple threat is a rare find for coaches.

Word History and Origins

Origin of triple threat¹

First recorded in 1920–25

Idioms and Phrases

A person who is adept in three areas, as in She's a triple threat on the editorial staff—she can edit, write, and design pages. This term comes from football, where it signifies a player who is good at running, passing, and kicking. [c. 1920] Also see hat trick.

Example Sentences

Harvard’s Jill Lepore is a triple threat: lauded historian, prominent legal scholar and New Yorker journalist.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

"He is a very good distributor, good link player, a ball carrier and he has got that kicking game too - a triple threat really," Ma'asi-White says of his former team-mate.

Read more on BBC

"ChatGPT Barbie represents a triple threat to our privacy, our culture and our planet," said Ms Neff.

Read more on BBC

There’s no one like this kewpie triple threat, and even at half-mast she was able to summon some of the old magic.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

James Sweeney’s “Twinless” is one of a number of projects — also including Katarina Zhu’s “Bunnylovr,” Grace Glowicki’s “Dead Lover,” Eva Victor’s “Sorry, Baby” and Cooper Raiff’s “Hal & Harper” — that feature writer-director-stars, a triple threat that’s been a Sundance staple going to back to Wendell B. Harris Jr.’s 1990 “Chameleon Street” and Kevin Smith’s “Clerks” from 1994.

Read more on Los Angeles Times