Third World

Third World was a political term. Now it tends to refer to economic status. There was a cheerful reference to it in Yes Minister, a television series. They were not developing countries, rather they were TPLACs or Tin Pot Little African Countries. The Permanent Undersecretary was not amused. The rest of us were.

Third World - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
QUOTE
The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either capitalism and NATO (which along with its allies represented the First World), or communism and the Soviet Union (which along with its allies represented the Second World). This definition provided a way of broadly categorizing the nations of the Earth into three groups based on social, political, and economic divisions.

"Third World' refers to the economically underdeveloped countries particularly in the Middle East, South Asia, Latin America, Africa, and Oceania, considered as an entity with common characteristics, such as poverty, high birthrates, and economic dependence on the advanced countries. French demographer, anthropologist and historian Alfred Sauvy, in an article published in the French magazine L'Observateur, August 14, 1952, coined the term Third World, referring to countries that were unaligned with either the Communist Soviet bloc or the Capitalist NATO bloc during the Cold War. His usage was a reference to the Third Estate, the commoners of France who, before and during the French Revolution, opposed priests and nobles, who composed the First Estate and Second Estate, respectively. Sauvy wrote, "Like the third estate, the Third World is nothing, and wants to be something," He conveyed the concept of political non-alignment with either the capitalist or communist bloc.
UNQUOTE
The Wiki can be very good when it is not being partisan.