third wheel

English

Alternative forms

• 3rd wheel

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU):

  (file)

Noun

third wheel (plural third wheels)

1. (idiomatic) A person or thing that serves no useful purpose.
2. (idiomatic) An unwanted third party accompanying two people on a date.

Synonyms

• fifth wheel, gooseberry (British)

Translations

person or thing that serves no useful purpose

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: please add this translation if you can

• Finnish: painolasti (fi)
• German: fünftes Rad am Wagen n
• Italian: ultima ruota del carro f
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Polish: piąte koło u wozu (pl) n
• Romanian: a cincea roată la căruță f
• Russian: третий лишний (ru) (tretij lišnij)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: тринаесто прасе

  Roman: trinaesto prase

• Spanish:

unwanted third party accompanying two people on a date

• Armenian: please add this translation if you can
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 電燈膽／电灯胆 (din⁶ dang¹ daam²), 电灯胆 (din⁶ dang¹ daam²)

  Mandarin: 電燈泡／电灯泡 (zh) (diàndēngpào), 电灯泡 (zh) (diàndēngpào)

• Dutch: please add this translation if you can
• Esperanto: please add this translation if you can
• Finnish: kolmas pyörä (fi)
• French: tenir la chandelle (fr), cinquième roue du carrosse (fr) f
• Greek: please add this translation if you can
• Hebrew: גלגל שלישי m (galgál shlishí)
• Hungarian: gyertyatartó (hu)
• Indonesian: obat nyamuk (id)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Irish: éan corr m
• Italian: terzo incomodo
• Japanese: please add this translation if you can
• Korean: please add this translation if you can
• Portuguese: vela (pt) f
• Romanian: please add this translation if you can
• Russian: тре́тий ли́шний (ru) m (trétij líšnij)
• Spanish: sujetavelas m or f (Spain), mal tercio m (Mexico), sapo (es) m (Cuba), violinista (es) m or f (Latin America), chaperón, paleta (es)
• Swedish: tredje hjul n
• Thai: please add this translation if you can
• Turkish: please add this translation if you can
• Vietnamese: please add this translation if you can
• Welsh: olwyn sbâr f

See also

• two's company, three's a crowd