Third World

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.

Third World

noun

1. 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 Also calleddeveloping world

Third World

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 .

Idioms and Phrases

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.

Example Sentences

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

From BBC

Trump complained that the turbines would ruin golfers’ views and “turn Scotland into a Third World wasteland.”

From Los Angeles Times

“Why are you importing Third World savages who eat animals and giving them jobs over United States citizens?” a voicemail left for McGregor said.

From Salon

As he's done many times before, the 78-year-old candidate made unsubstantiated claims that the 2020 election was stolen and warned that the United States was devolving “into a Third World Nation.”

From Salon

It’s the type of hoary leadership that Americans have long associated with Third World countries — but nope, this is the U.S. in 2024.

From Los Angeles Times