triple-crown
Học thuậtThân thiện
Definition
- Adjective:
- Unofficial championship title for a baseball player who leads the league in batting average, home runs, and runs batted in: Used exclusively in baseball to denote the highest single-season offensive achievement.
- Of a horse that has won the Kentucky Derby, the Belmont Stakes, and the Preakness Stakes: Used exclusively in American thoroughbred horse racing to denote the winner of the three most prestigious annual races for three-year-olds.
Usage Examples
Adjective (Baseball):
- Miguel Cabrera achieved the rare triple-crown season in 2012.
- Winning the triple-crown is one of the most difficult feats in baseball.
Adjective (Horse Racing):
- Justify is a triple-crown winner, having won all three races in 2018.
- The farm breeds horses with the hope of producing a triple-crown champion.
Advanced Usage
- The term is almost always used attributively (before a noun) as a compound adjective, such as "triple-crown winner," "triple-crown season," or "triple-crown contender."
- It is a highly specific sports honorific; its use outside of baseball and horse racing is metaphorical, implying a similar dominance across three major areas in a field.
Variants and Related Words
- Triple Crown (Proper Noun): The official name of the achievement in both sports. The adjective form is typically hyphenated.
- Triple-crown winner (Noun Phrase): The athlete or horse that has achieved the feat.
Synonyms
- Baseball: There is no direct single-word synonym; it is described as "leading the league in the three major batting categories."
- Horse Racing: There is no direct single-word synonym; it is described as "winner of the U.S. Classic races."
Notes on Meaning
- The two meanings are entirely separate and belong to different sports lexicons. Context always makes it clear which sport is being discussed.
- The term is capitalized ("Triple Crown") when referring to the specific titles or events themselves but often appears in lower case and hyphenated when used as a descriptive adjective.
Adjective
- unofficial championship title for player who heads the league in batting average and home runs and runs batted in
- of a horse that has won the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes and the Preakness races