Word.ws English Dictionary

five-second rule

five-second rule noun: the belief that food dropped on the ground is still hygienic to eat provided it is picked up within five seconds of touching the ground.

five-second rule: the belief that food dropped on the ground is still hygienic to eat provided it is picked up within...
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Noun

five-second rule (plural five-second rules)

  1. (informal) The belief that food dropped on the ground is still hygienic to eat provided it is picked up within five seconds of touching the ground.
    • Accompanied by six graphs, two tables and equations whose terms include “bologna” and “carpet,” it’s a thorough microbiological study of the five-second rule: the idea that if you pick up a dropped piece of food before you can count to five, it’s O.K. to eat it.2007-05-09, Harold McGee, The New York Times, "The Five-Second Rule Explored, or How Dirty Is That Bologna?", page F3
    • UNFORTUNATELY, THE FIVE-SECOND RULE IS A MYTH.2010, Sandy Donovan, Does an Apple a Day Keep the Doctor Away?
  2. A rule that a closely-guarded player cannot hold the ball for more than five seconds without dribbling, passing, rolling, or shooting the ball.
  3. A rule that a player who throws in the ball from out of bounds must get rid of it in less than five seconds.

Examples of five-second rule in a sentence

  • Here are five facts to remember for those who are tempted to apply the five-second rule.2012, William A. Dando, Food and Famine in the 21st Century, page 201:
  • Often, people call out the five-second rule because they think that if you get food off the floor quickly enough, there won't be any germs on it.2015, Curious George Discovers Germs:

Forms of five-second rule

pluralfive-second rules

Questions about five-second rule

What does five-second rule mean?
Five-second rule means the belief that food dropped on the ground is still hygienic to eat provided it is picked up within five seconds of touching the ground.
How do you use five-second rule in a sentence?
Here are five facts to remember for those who are tempted to apply the five-second rule.
What part of speech is five-second rule?
Five-second rule is a noun.
What is the plural of five-second rule?
The plural of five-second rule is five-second rules.

Words near five-second rule in the dictionary

  1. five-point Calvinists
  2. five-pointer
  3. five-pointers
  4. five-ring
  5. five-rings
  6. five-second rule
  7. five-second rules
  8. five-six
  9. five-sixths
  10. five-spice
  11. five-spice powder

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: five-second rule (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-five-second rule.wav.

Cite this entry: “five-second rule.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/five-second_rule. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.