third order

In relation to religious orders, a third order is an association of persons who live according to the ideals and spirit of a Catholic, Anglican, or Lutheran religious order, but do not belong to its "first order" (generally, in the Catholic Church, the male religious: for example Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelite and Augustinian friars), or its "second order" (contemplative female religious associated with the "first order"). Members of third orders, known as tertiaries (Latin tertiarii, from tertius, third), may be lay men and women or ordained men (or women, if the tradition ordains them) who do not take religious vows, but participate in the good works of order and may be allowed to wear at least some elements of the order's habit, such as a scapular. Less often, they belong to a religious institute (a "congregation") that is called a "third order regular".