What is the origin of the phrase "give someone the third degree?"?

In modern parlance, the expression is directly taken from the Exam for the Master Mason degree of Freemasonry - or the "Third" Degree.

In the three degrees of Freemasonry, there is an oral exam given to ensure the candidate actually understands what happened during the ritual parts of the degree work. These oral exams are given in a question: answer style, with the First Degree being rather simple and short.

The oral exam for the Third Degree, however, can last upwards of half-an-hour or 45-minutes - and the ENTIRE thing is done from memory... so it is QUITE exhausting.

The questioning runs along the lines of "What happened when you went to the Warden," "Why did he tell you that," "What did that signify," and "Where did you go after that?" To be personal about it, the exam is a *****, and made my head hurt - and from the Brothers to which I've spoken, all felt the same way.

SO... to give someone the Third Degree is to question them incessantly and never let any silence creep in, just constantly barraging them with questions... like in an interrogation.

Giving Someone The Third Degree

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Meaning: Close interrogation. Origin: A Masonic term. In a masonic lodge there are three degrees, the first is called Entered Apprentice, the second Fellowcraft, and the third is master mason. When a candidate receives the third degree in a masonic lodge, he is subjected to some activities that involve an interrogation and it is more physically challenging than the first two degrees.

What Is The Third Degree

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RE:

What is the origin of the phrase "give someone the third degree?"?

Where did the phrase come from originally?

Origin of "The Third Degree"

The classification of the qualities of objects by degree - heat and cold, moisture and dryness etc. - was commonplace in the middle ages. Henry Lyte's translation of Dodoens' Niewe herball or historie of plantes, 1578 includes a description of rue:

"Rue is hoate and dry in the third degree."

Shakespeare went on to apply the degree classification to drink, in Twelfth Night, 1601:

"For he's in the third degree of drink: he's drown'd: go looke after him."

The present meaning involves more than classification though. 'The third degree' is well-known to all US crime-fiction enthusiasts as 'an intensive, possibly brutal, interrogation'.

In Masonic lodges there are three degrees of membership; the first is called Entered Apprentice, the second Fellowcraft, and the third is master mason. When a candidate receives the third degree in a Masonic lodge, he is subjected to some activities that involve an interrogation and it is more physically challenging than the first two degrees. It is this interrogation that was the source of the name of the US police force's interrogation technique. That is referred to in an 1900 edition of Everybody's Magazine:

"From time to time a prisoner... claims to have had the Third Degree administered to him."

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/372300.html

The modern meaning originates from the process for getting into the third level (degree) in the Masonic Lodge - which involves an interrogation.

Idioms: third degree

Intensive questioning or rough treatment used to obtain information or a confession, as in The detectives gave her the third degree, or Jim gave her the third degree when she came home so late. This term comes from freemasonry, where a candidate receives the third or highest degree, that of master mason, upon passing an intensive test. Dating from the 1770s, the phrase was transferred to other kinds of interrogation in the late 1800s.

Law Encyclopedia: Third Degree

A colloquial term used to describe unlawful methods of coercing an individual to confess to a criminal offense by overcoming his or her free will through the use of psychological or physical violence.

The least serious grade of a specific crime— the grades being classified by the law according to the circumstances under which the crime is committed—for which the least punishment specified by statute will be imposed.

http://www.answers.com/third%20degree

"intense interrogation by police," 1900, probably a reference to Third Degree of master mason in Freemasonry (1772), the conferring of which included an interrogation ceremony. Third degree as a measure of severity of burns (most severe) is attested from 1866, from Fr. (1832); in Amer.Eng., as a definition of the seriousness of a particular type of crime (the least serious type) it is recorded from 1865.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=third+deg...

More likely from the Third Degree of the Knights of Columbus - since most NY and Chicago cops were Irish Catholic and members of the KofC, which was - at this time - a benevolent and protective alternative to Masonry, which is off-limits to Catholics.

I'm pretty sure that it is a reference to 3rd degree burns, but I don't know who said it first.