thirdhand

thirdhand

1. adverb Indirectly, as opposed to from the original source. But I heard thirdhand, so who knows if that information is actually true.
2. adjective Describing information that has been learned indirectly, as opposed to from the original source. I can't trust this thirdhand gossip! Who was in the meeting and can tell us what really happened?
3. adjective Describing an item that one has obtained after two previous owners. Try to pretend that this isn't a thirdhand dress and gush about how good it looks on me!
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • second hand
  • second, third, etc. hand
  • catty
  • catty-corner
  • in vain
  • mad
  • (as) fast as greased lightning
  • faster than greased lightning
  • bulletproof
  • (as) quick as greased lightning
References in periodicals archive
Smoking, the largest cause of preventable death worldwide, including the Philippines, causes a triple threat through the catastrophic consequences of first, second and thirdhand smoke.
"Our data show that cells in humans are affected by thirdhand smoke," said Prue Talbot, a professor in the Department of Molecular, Cell and Systems Biology, who led the research.
Beliefs about the health effects of "thirdhand" smoke and home smoking bans.
They discovered it consisted of chemicals from thirdhand smoke -- and made up 29% of the air mass in the room.
And where there is secondhand smoke, there is typically exposure to thirdhand smoke as well.
A recent study in the journal (http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2017/03/30/tobaccocontrol-2016-053602) Tobacco Control  found high levels of nicotine on the hands of children of smokers, raising concerns about thirdhand smoke, a name given to the nicotine and chemical residue left behind from cigarette and cigar smoke that can cling to skin, hair, clothes, rugs and walls.
It is important that you take steps to avoid inhaling secondhand smoke and to clean up lingering toxins that are referred to as thirdhand smoke.
Being the bunso (youngest), it is rudimentary, wired in my mother's brain, that I receive secondhand or even thirdhand stuff to fill my wardrobe.
Tobacco smoke gases and particles on surfaces and in dust--also known as thirdhand tobacco smoke--pose a real health risk to adults and children and should not be overlooked in policy discussions, concluded a new study published in July in Environment International.
Electronic cigarettes and thirdhand tobacco smoke: two emerging health care challenges for the primary care provider.
The robustness of this record is questionable because it is based on a thirdhand account in an anonymously authored report, known as the Outridge Booklet (Anonymous 1899g).
As far as they were concerned, Manet had thrown a commotion on the canvas: a still life in the lower-left corner, a superb morceau de peinture, but how lackadaisically strewn on the model's petticoat!; a landscape in the background painted so hastily it looked like a theater backdrop; and an incomprehensible genre scene in the middle, in which the jury may or may not have recognized an updated, thirdhand quotation of Raphael, via Marcantonio and Charles Blanc, not counting the indecent nude that looks us in the eyes and tosses Ingres's slick odalisque "into one pot with Rembrandt and Giotto." (17) The jurors saw the impure mixture of the genres but not their new synthesis.
Previous studies have shown that nicotine in thirdhand smoke can react with the ozone in indoor air and surfaces such as clothing and furniture, to form other pollutants.
An officer who is assigned to work at the campus near West 18th Avenue and Bailey Hill Road learned "thirdhand" of the reported threat from a Churchill teacher on Monday morning, Mozan said.
It demands that problem solvers "go and see" the problem firsthand and not rely on abstract, thirdhand reports.