1. third party - Noun
2. third party - Adjective
3. third party - Verb
(business, commerce) Someone not directly involved in a transaction; an entity beyond the seller (first party) and customer (second party).
A seller may employ a third party to perform specific services to augment the value of a product, such as packing and distribution.
(law) Someone only incidentally or tangentially connected to an incident or dispute; someone other than the principals; a bystander or independent witness.
(politics, chiefly US) A political party in opposition to the main parties in a two-party system.
third-party (not comparable)
Of or relating to a third party.
(computing, hardware, software) Of products, created or published by an independent publisher or manufacturer or its internal development teams, as opposed to first-party and second-party.
Coordinate terms: third source, third-source
a third-party video game; a third-party character; third-party hardware
third-party (third-person singular simple present third-parties, present participle third-partying, simple past and past participle third-partied)
(video games) To intervene in a fight between two players or teams, often allowing one to easy defeat both (sometimes seen as unfair).
third-party
Fire is the most tolerable third party. Henry David Thoreau
When BP was not moving fast enough on claims, we told BP to set aside $20 billion in a fund - managed by an independent third party - to help all those whose lives have been turned upside down by the spill. Barack Obama
Every face on Mt. Rushmore was a third party candidate at some point or another. Gary Johnson
Friends don't need the intervention of a third party. Friendship's a voluntary thing. Haruki Murakami
We exercise great caution in airing an audio- or videotape released by a terrorist organization holding a hostage. These are decisions made by CNN's editorial staff and not by any third party. Jim C. Walton
All I will say is that there are particular features of the American constitutional system that renders a third party futile - at best. Todd Gitlin