"third conditional" meaning in English

See third conditional in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: third conditionals [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} third conditional (plural third conditionals)
  1. (grammar, linguistics) A structure used to convey unreal or unfulfilled events in the past, containing an if clause (with a verb in the past perfect) and a main clause (with would + the bare perfect infinitive of a verb). Categories (topical): Grammar, Linguistics
    Sense id: en-third_conditional-en-noun-V4crHUNY Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Topics: grammar, human-sciences, linguistics, sciences

Inflected forms

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      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "\"If Columbus hadn't discovered America, he wouldn't have been famous\" is an example of the third conditional."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A structure used to convey unreal or unfulfilled events in the past, containing an if clause (with a verb in the past perfect) and a main clause (with would + the bare perfect infinitive of a verb)."
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          "structure",
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        ],
        [
          "convey",
          "convey"
        ],
        [
          "unreal",
          "unreal"
        ],
        [
          "unfulfilled",
          "unfulfilled"
        ],
        [
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          "if clause"
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          "bare",
          "bare"
        ],
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        "linguistics",
        "sciences"
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-04-29 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-04-20 using wiktextract (4eaa824 and ea19a0a). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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