thumb

CEFRB1

/ˈθʌm/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    The short, thick finger beside the other fingers.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    A thumbnail picture.

Examples

  • I pricked my thumb with a needle.

  • She still sucks her thumb when she's worried.

At a glance

Sits at B1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5
Synonyms
5

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. The part of a slider that may be moved linearly along the slider.

  2. The shortest and thickest digit of the hand that for humans has the most mobility and can be made to oppose (moved to touch) all of the other fingers.

  3. A top hatch plate for covering an excavator bucket, used to keep material in the digger bucket after scooping it up, and not letting it spill out.

More examples

In context

  • The glove has a hole in the thumb.

  • to thumb the touch-hole of a cannon

  • a scroll-bar thumb

Synonyms

Quick test

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Question 1 · Quick check

He accidentally hit his blank with a heavy hammer while fixing the shelf.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

Derived from Middle English thombe, thoume, thoumbe (“thumb”), from Old English þūma (“thumb”), from Proto-West Germanic *þūmō (“thumb”), from Proto-Germanic *þūmô (“thumb”), from Proto-Indo-European *tūm- (“to grow”). Cognate with West Frisian tomme (“thumb”), Dutch duim (“thumb”), Low German Duum (“thumb”), German Daumen (“thumb”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk tomme (“inch”), Norn tum (“thumb”), Swedish tumme (“thumb”), tum (“inch”), Russian дюйм (djujm, “inch”), Ancient Greek τύμβος (túmbos, “burial mound”). Also compare Welsh tyfu (“to grow”), Latin tumēre (“to swell”), Lithuanian tumėti (“to thicken, clot”), Avestan 𐬀𐬨𐬏𐬙 (amūt, “strong”), Sanskrit तुम्र (túmra, “...