/finger/

 

/finger/

Verb.

-) Pronunciation: fɪŋgə(r).

-) Preterite tense, preterite participle: fingered.

-) Present participle: fingering.

-) Etymology: verbalization of the English noun FINGER.

-) It is dated from the beginning of 1500.

Transitively: 1. To touch or feel with one or more fingers; to take or hold with one’s fingers.

-) Translation: toucher avec les doigts, in French; tocar con los dedos, in Spanish; toccare colle dita, in Italian.

Uncle Gerald walked up and down his library with a troubled countenance, one hand clasped behind him, while the other fingered the buttons of his dressing-gown.

Virginia Townsend… While it was Morning 1858

Mrs. Bowen fingered the edges of her book.

William Howells… Indian Summer 1885

We noticed […] that Laura fingered her mouth and chin nervously, as if she had to have an outlet and had substituted this for the thumb-sucking.

Blanche Weill… Through Children’s Eyes 1944

A five dollar gold piece and three silver dollars! She fingered the coins shyly, not knowing what to say. 

Susan Marlow… Andrea Carter… 2010

2. In particular: to masturbate (someone) with one or more fingers.

[I] looked at her little cunt, and felt and fingered it inside and out.

Walter… My Secret Life 1888

Without saying a word, Red spread the lips of her pussy and fingered her clit a little more. She took the same two fingers and sucked them.

Vickie Stringer… Dirty Red 2009

That day at lunch, we fingered each other in a stall in the ladies room next to the library.

Roberta Woods… My Incredible Sex Life

3. To play upon (an instrument) with one or more fingers; to type with one or more fingers.

[…] he again fingered the guitar with the ease of one who had mastered all its pulses.

William Simms… Southward Ho! 1854

4. To play (a passage of music) with the fingers used in a certain manner.

5. To mark (a piece of music) with fingered symbols that indicate the fingers with which the notes are to be played.

6. To point out with one finger. Hence, by abuse: to designate, to choose, as if by a finger.

Southern was fingered as the team to win in 1966. And it did.

Ebony Jul 1966

Ed Rosenbaum was fingered as the active manager of the executive office.

Stuart Mclver… Touched by the Sun 2001

7. Metaphors: a. (The subject being a conspirator) to target (a person, a thing, or a place) as the object of an intended robbery or other unlaw.

I become aware that the eyes at any window […] could have fingered me for extermination.

Michael Sorkin… Some Assembly Required 2001

b. (The subject being an injured person or a witness) to identify (a criminal) to the police.

[…] an FBI man was fingered for having been a Russian agent for many of his 15 years of service.

S. Peter Karlow… Targeted by the CIA 2001

Intransitively: 1. To use one or more fingers in touching something or someone.

-) With the preposition at + noun of what is touched:

He touched and fingered at these papers, in a sort of vague, inane manner, still continuing to murmur to himself.

Littell’s The Living Age 1844

2. (The subject being a musical instrument) to be fingered.

[…] the valve trombone was the standard instrument, in part because it fingered the same as the whole family of brasses.

James Collier… Duke Ellington 1987

-) English words derived from FINGER: fingerable, fingerative, fingerer, fingered, fingerful, fingering, fingerless, finger-nail, finger-picking, finger-picked, finger-picker, finger-post, finger-posted, finger-postless, finger-post (verb), finger-stall, finger-tip, fngery, forefinger.