Word.ws English Dictionary

five-second rules

five-second rules is the plural of five-second rule.

Meaning of five-second rule

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
  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.

Questions about five-second rules

What is five-second rules the plural of?
Five-second rules is the plural of five-second rule.

Words near five-second rules in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: five-second rules (page history and authors); 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.

Last updated:

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