[Fr., = third estate: see TIERCE and ESTATE.] A third estate or class; esp. the third estate, the body of commons or their representatives in the French National Assembly before the Revolution; whence sometimes applied to the corresponding body in other countries: see ESTATE sb. 6.
1751. Chesterfield, Lett., 266 (1792), III. 220. The tiers état was exactly our House of Commons, that is, the people represented by deputies of their own choosing.
1783. J. Adams, Diary, 27 Feb. There are … thirty classes in the Tiers Etat.
1794. J. Gifford, Reign Louis XVI., 260. The three orders united confirmed all those important decrees that had been made by the Tiers Etat.
1799. Monthly Rev., XXX. 548. Montesquieu mistakes in affirming that the natives of the country [Russia] are all either lords or slaves, and that there was no tiers-état.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., I. iv. i. Necker … emits, if any proclamation or regulation, one favouring the Tiers Etat.
