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A.Word.A.Day--hat trick

This week's theme: Words from games and sports

noun: Three successes in a game or another endeavor. For example, taking three wickets with three successive deliveries by a bowler in a game of cricket, three goals or points won by a player in a game of soccer or ice hockey, etc.

[From cricket, from the former practice of awarding a hat to a bowler who dismissed three batsmen with three successive balls.]

"Can real estate investment trusts (REITs) pull off a hat trick? They delivered an impressive total return of 29% in 2000 and a solid 11.5% in 2001, a period when the stock market was in a dive and the economy was sliding into a recession. Sure, vacancy rates are up and rents down, but REIT investors believe they will make money again in 2002."
Michael Arndt; REITs Can Be a Roof Over Your Head; BusinessWeek (New York); December 31, 2001.

See more usage examples of hat trick in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

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