thumb

Universal Words noun, verb noun 1 the short thick finger at the side of the hand, slightly apart from the other four: She still sucks her thumb when she's worried. seealsoGREENTHUMB 2 the part of a glove that covers the thumb: There's a hole in the thumb. IDIOMS be all (fingers and) thumbs to be awkward with your hands so that you drop things or are unable to do sth thumbs up / down used to show that sth has been accepted/rejected or that it is/is not a success: Their proposals were given the thumbs down. * It looks like it's thumbs up for their latest album. under sb's thumb (of a person) completely controlled by sb: She's got him under her thumb. moreatRULEn., SOREadj., TWIDDLEv. verb 1 to make a signal with your thumb to passing drivers to ask them to stop and take you somewhere: [V, +adv./prep.] He had thumbed all across Europe. * [VN] We managed to thumb a lift / ride with a truck driver. 2 [VN] [often +adv./prep.] to touch or move sth with your thumb: She thumbed off the safety catch of her pistol. seealsoWELLTHUMBED IDIOMS thumb your nose at sb/sth to make a rude sign with your thumb on your nose; to show that you have no respect for sb/sth: The company just thumbs its nose at the legislation on pollution. PHRASALVERBS thumb through sth to turn the pages of a book quickly in order to get a general idea of what is in it: I was thumbing through my address book to see who we could invite.