Finger Meaning
/ˈfɪŋɡəː/Definition, CEFR level A2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
nounA slender jointed extremity of the human hand, (often) exclusive of the thumb.
nounSimilar or similar-looking extremities in other animals, particularly
Sentence Examples
You want to have a finger in every pie, don't you?
Cool the burned finger in running water.
She cut her finger on a piece of glass.
CEFR Practice Quiz
She slipped the gold wedding ring onto her fourth ____ during the marriage ceremony.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
She pointed her ____ at the map to show me exactly where the hidden treasure was located.
Word Origin & History
PIE word *pénkʷe From Middle English fynger, finger, from Old English finger (“finger”), from Proto-West Germanic *fingr, from Proto-Germanic *fingraz (“finger”), from Proto-Indo-European *penkʷrós, from *pénkʷe (“five”). Cognate with West Frisian finger, German and Low German Finger, Dutch vinger, Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish finger, Faroese and Icelandic fingur; see also Old Armenian հինգեր-որդ (hinger-ord, “fifth”). More at five.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"[M]aking a Cut here big enough to put her Finger in, which ſhe thruſts under the Guts, and with it rakes or tears out the Stone that lies neareſt to it."
— 1750, W[illiam] Ellis, The Country Housewife's Family Companion […] , London: James Hodges; B. Collins, →OCLC, page 157:
"Each finger extended represents one-eighth of a cent. Thus when all four fingers and the thumb are extended, all being spread out from one another, it means five-eighths."
— 1916, “The Finger Talk of Chicago's Wheat-Pit”, in Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 89, p. 81:
"In 1993 [Victor Candia] noticed that the fingers of his left hand were starting to curl up as he played [on his guitar]. It felt to him as if a magnet in his palm were preventing him from opening them. A week later, he could not play at all."
— 2014 March 29, “Don’t cramp my style”, in The Economist, volume 410, number 8880:
"The starfish eats with five fingers."
— 1915, Eleanor Stackhouse Atkinson, “The How and Why Library”, in Life, Section VIII:
"...spires whose ‘silent finger points to Heaven’..."
— 1814, William Wordsworth, The Excursion, page 250:
Explore More A2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
She slipped the gold wedding ring onto her fourth ____ during the marriage ceremony.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
She pointed her ____ at the map to show me exactly where the hidden treasure was located.