three (long cylindrical things)
Used as a counter for three long, thin objects such as bottles, pens, trees, or fingers.
I bought three bottles of beer at the supermarket.
There are three bottles of beer in the fridge.
Please give me three pencils.
In hanafuda, a hand containing three cards of the same suit. Domain-specific term.
See also: 手役
I got three-of-a-kind in my hand.
He has one of the top three grades in the class.
三本 (さんぼん) is 'three long cylindrical things' (bottles, pens, etc.), while 三分 (さんぶん) means 'three parts/portions' — the readings sound alike but the counters differ.
Standard kanji spelling for counting three long cylindrical objects.
Numerical variant; common in informal writing, lists, or when space is limited.
Compound of 三 (san, 'three') and the counter 本 (hon, 'long cylindrical object'), with rendaku voicing to ぼん.