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third-order kinetics

(Science: pharmacology) A term describing the reaction rate of a chemical reaction in which the rate is proportional to the product of the concentrations (in moles) of three of the reactants, the product of the molar concentration of one reactant and the square of the molar concentration of another reactant, or the cube of the molar concentration of one of the reactants.

Such a reaction might have an equation like rate = k[A][B][C] or rate = [A][B]2 or rate = [A]3, where k is the reaction rate constant, [A] is the concentration of reactant A, [B] is the concentration of reactant B, and [C] is the concentration of reactant C.