third party

See also: third-party

English

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Noun

third party (plural third parties)

  2. (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.
  3. (law) Someone only incidentally or tangentially connected to an incident or dispute; someone other than the principals; a bystander or independent witness.
  4. (politics, chiefly US) A political party in opposition to the main parties in a two-party system.
    • 2010, Duncan Watts, Dictionary of American Government and Politics, →ISBN, page 177:
      Those who belong to the Libertarian Party serve a much larger pro-liberty community and have the specific mission of electing libertarians to public office. They traditionally billed themselves as 'America's largest third party'.
  5. A person or party not directly involved with an arrangement, in contrast to active parties, characteristically the first party (producer) and second party (consumer).

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