THUMB IDIOMS

All Thumbs

• Uncoordinated or clumsy with one's hands.

• My mother does beautiful calligraphy, but I'm all thumbs—I can barely hold the pen!

Bite (one's) Thumb At

• An archaic insult, often accompanied by the gesture of biting one's thumb at the person being insulted.

• How dare you say that to me? I bite my thumb at you, sir!

Brown Thumb

The inability or lack of skill in gardening or growing plants, such that they end up dying or fail to grow at all.

• Derived from "green thumb," meaning the opposite.

• I'd love a flowerbed in the back yard, but I have such a brown thumb that the flowers would all die within a week.

Give (something) the Thumbs Down

To show one's disapproval of something. The phrase can refer to the actual gesture, which carries the same meaning, but is typically used figuratively.

I know the committee approved our idea, but the CEO ultimately gave it the thumbs down.

A Pricking in (one's) Thumbs

Old-fashioned, literary An intuition or premonition about something; a sense of foreknowledge

about a situation, condition, or set of circumstances.

• A reference to a line in Shakespeare's Macbeth: "By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes."

• I have this pricking in my thumbs that the meeting isn't going to end in our favor.

• She felt the old, familiar pricking in her thumbs, a sense that something awful was about to happen to someone close to her.

A Rule of Thumb

• An approximation; a suggested method or guideline.

• A good rule of thumb is to plant your seedlings around the end of May.

Note: This expression probably dates back to the use of the first joint of the thumb as a unit of measurement.

Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2012

Stand Around With (one's) Thumb Up (one's) Ass

• Rude slang To stand in or around a single location, idly wasting time.

• Stop standing around with your thumb up your ass and help me push this car off the road!

• "Tom's still just standing around with his thumb up his ass."

Stand (or stick) Out Like a Sore Thumb

• To be very conspicuous.

• I grew up in California, so when I moved to Minnesota, I stood out like a sore thumb.

• Unfortunately, the cover will need to be redesigned. The error in the image stands out like a sore thumb.

• If someone or something sticks out like a sore thumb or stands out like a sore thumb, they are very noticeable because they are very different from the other people or things around them.

• Foreigners are at greater risk of robbery because they are more wealthy and they stick out like a sore thumb.

• I much prefer to wear a proper suit, but fear that I will stand out like a sore thumb.

Thumb (one's) Nose at (someone or something)

• Literally, to perform a rude gesture in which one touches their nose with their thumb in order to express contempt or a lack of respect.

• Did that guy really just thumb his nose at me? Do people still do that?

• To openly display contempt or an intentional lack of respect toward someone or something.

• Don't thumb your nose at the boss if you want to keep your job!

• To show a sign of derision at someone or something by placing the thumb to the side of the nose.

(Often while wiggling the other fingers of the hand.)

• To dismiss someone or something as worthless, verbally.

• Walter thumbed his nose at Fred and asked the gang to send someone else to do the job.

• She thumbed her nose at the whole idea.

• This expression alludes to the traditional gesture of contempt, that is, placing the thumb under the nose and wiggling the fingers. [c. 1900]

• Show disdain or contempt for. Compare with cock a snook (at snook).

Thumb on the Scale

• A method of deception or manipulation that creates an unfair advantage for the swindler, likened to a merchant holding a thumb on the scale when weighing goods for sale, therefore increasing the weight and price.

• You have to suspect that the casinos have their thumb on the scale when it comes to the slot machines. There's no way you're getting fair odds.

Thumb Through (something)

• To casually peruse or look at the pages in a book, magazine, or other reading material without much attention or scrutiny.

• I thumbed through the sports section while waiting at the doctor's office, but I was too nervous to pay attention to it.

• I thumbed through your proposal, and even at first glance I can tell you that it won't be approved by the board.

• To go through some reading material quickly or superficially, turning from page to page with or as if with the thumb.

• I thumbed through the directory for my dentist's phone number.

Twiddling (one's) Thumbs

• To be waiting idly because one cannot take action or has nothing to do at the moment.

• Although the phrase refers to an actual gesture (in which one's fingers are interlaced and each thumb is brought over the other in succession),

the phrase is usually used figuratively.

•I was twiddling my thumbs and minding my own business when the security guard asked me if I had permission to be there.

• If you are twiddling your thumbs, you are waiting with nothing useful todo.

• I'd far rather be cleaning than twiddling my thumbs waiting for the boys to wake up.

• There is a lot of team work too and no one is ever left twiddling their thumbs.

Under (one's) Thumb

Controlled or dominated by someone.

• He's been under his mother's thumb for years.

•The allusion in this metaphoric idiom is unclear, that is, why a thumb rather than a fist or some other anatomic part should symbolize control.

[Mid-1700s]

The idiom conjures an image of someone being squashed under a gigantic thumb, as a bug may be squashed. The idiom to be under someone's thumb first appeared in the early eighteenth century, though why the thumb is the anatomy that is used in this phrase is unknown.