Meaning
Said to express or encourage the belief that a third attempt will succeed where the first two failed - sometimes as genuine confidence, sometimes as a reassuring formula spoken just before trying again. It is the usual British form; the usual American equivalent is 'third time's a charm'. Conversational and optimistic; chiefly British and Commonwealth, with 'third time's a charm' the everyday American phrasing. Regional use: British English.
Origin
Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote in letters published in 1839 that 'the luck of the third adventure' is proverbial, which shows the belief circulated before the modern wording. The first explicit listing The Phrase Finder gives is Alexander Hislop's The Proverbs of Scotland (1862): 'The third time's lucky.' The American counterpart 'third time's a charm' is first cited in the Weekly Sentinel of June 1912 and may be either a variant of the British saying or an independent American coinage. Popular origin stories do not hold up: the tale that prisoners who survived three hanging attempts were reprieved - often tied to John 'Babbacombe' Lee in 1885 - post-dates the phrase, no such legal rule existed, and a link to the Christian Trinity has no supporting evidence. A folk preference for the number three is the sober explanation.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- Third time is the charm
- Third time's a charm
- Third time's lucky
- Third time's the charm
Usage Examples
- She failed her driving test twice, muttered 'third time lucky', and passed with a clean sheet.
- Third time lucky, the engineers said, as the rocket's third launch attempt finally lifted off.
- He had proposed the idea at two board meetings already; hoping it was third time lucky, he booked a longer slot.