Word.ws English Dictionary

three-name

three-name verb: the act of vocatively referring to someone (usually a child in one's family) using their full legal name (first, middle, and last) in order to emphasize a scolding.

Verb

three-name (third-person singular simple present three-names, present participle three-naming, simple past and past participle three-named)

  1. (US, slang) The act of vocatively referring to someone (usually a child in one's family) using their full legal name (first, middle, and last) in order to emphasize a scolding.
    • Mom got super mad: she three-named my little brother as he made eye contact and dumped his noodles on the floor. "John Paul Smith, don't you dare dump those noodles on the floor!"

Forms of three-name

third-person singular presentthree-names
present participlethree-naming
past participlethree-named
pastthree-named

Questions about three-name

What does three-name mean?
Three-name means the act of vocatively referring to someone (usually a child in one's family) using their full legal name (first, middle, and last) in order to emphasize a scolding.
What part of speech is three-name?
Three-name is a verb.
What is the past tense of three-name?
The past tense of three-name is three-named.

Words near three-name in the dictionary

  1. three-men-in-a-boat
  2. three-milk cake
  3. three-milk cakes
  4. three-minute warning
  5. three-minute warnings
  6. three-name
  7. three-named
  8. three-names
  9. three-naming
  10. three-of-a-kind
  11. three-on-the-tree

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: three-name (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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