"thumby" meaning in English

See thumby in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

IPA: /ˈθʌmi/ Audio: En-au-thumby.ogg [Australia] Forms: thumbier [comparative], thumbiest [superlative]
Etymology: From thumb + -y. Etymology templates: {{suffix|en|thumb|y}} thumb + -y Head templates: {{en-adj|thumbier}} thumby (comparative thumbier, superlative thumbiest)
  1. Clumsy, awkward, maladroit, not dextrous, all thumbs Categories (topical): Fingers
    Sense id: en-thumby-en-adj-GiwbQWAa Disambiguation of Fingers: 60 21 19 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with topic categories using raw markup, English terms suffixed with -y Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 47 25 28 Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 42 16 42 Disambiguation of English terms suffixed with -y: 47 21 32
  2. Dirtied by thumb marks
    Sense id: en-thumby-en-adj-ndx669S- Categories (other): English entries with topic categories using raw markup Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 42 16 42
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Etymology number: 2

Noun

IPA: /ˈθʌmi/ Audio: En-au-thumby.ogg [Australia] Forms: thumbies [plural]
Etymology: From thumb + -y/-ie (diminutive suffix). Etymology templates: {{suffix|en|thumb|y|alt2=-y/-ie|pos2=diminutive suffix}} thumb + -y/-ie (diminutive suffix) Head templates: {{en-noun}} thumby (plural thumbies)
  1. (slang) A little thumb; diminutive term for thumb Tags: slang Synonyms: pollex, thumb Related terms: pointling
    Sense id: en-thumby-en-noun-FSyZypmB Categories (other): English entries with topic categories using raw markup Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 42 16 42
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Etymology number: 1

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for thumby meaning in English (6.2kB)

{
  "etymology_number": 1,
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "thumb",
        "3": "y",
        "alt2": "-y/-ie",
        "pos2": "diminutive suffix"
      },
      "expansion": "thumb + -y/-ie (diminutive suffix)",
      "name": "suffix"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From thumb + -y/-ie (diminutive suffix).",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "thumbies",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "thumby (plural thumbies)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "42 16 42",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A little thumb; diminutive term for thumb"
      ],
      "id": "en-thumby-en-noun-FSyZypmB",
      "links": [
        [
          "thumb",
          "thumb"
        ],
        [
          "thumb",
          "thumb#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(slang) A little thumb; diminutive term for thumb"
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "pointling"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "pollex"
        },
        {
          "word": "thumb"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "slang"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈθʌmi/"
    },
    {
      "audio": "En-au-thumby.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/30/En-au-thumby.ogg/En-au-thumby.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/En-au-thumby.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "thumby"
}

{
  "etymology_number": 2,
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      "args": {
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        "2": "thumb",
        "3": "y"
      },
      "expansion": "thumb + -y",
      "name": "suffix"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From thumb + -y.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "thumbier",
      "tags": [
        "comparative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "thumbiest",
      "tags": [
        "superlative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "thumbier"
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      "expansion": "thumby (comparative thumbier, superlative thumbiest)",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "47 25 28",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w+disamb"
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          "_dis": "42 16 42",
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          "parents": [
            "Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
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        {
          "_dis": "47 21 32",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms suffixed with -y",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "60 21 19",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Fingers",
          "orig": "en:Fingers",
          "parents": [
            "Body",
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1896, Harriet Beecher Stowe, chapter 29, in The Pearl of Orr's Island: A Story of the Coast of Maine, Boston & New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co",
          "text": "\"Well, I don't tease anybody but the men. I don't tease father or mother or you,—but men are fair game; they are such thumby, blundering creatures, and we can confuse them so.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1904, H.G. Wells, The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth, Book I, Chapter 1",
          "text": "[…] he was propounding an improvement of Professor Armstrong's Heuristic method, whereby at the cost of three or four hundred pounds' worth of apparatus, a total neglect of all other studies and the undivided attention of a teacher of exceptional gifts, an average child might with a peculiar sort of thumby thoroughness learn in the course of ten or twelve years almost as much chemistry as one could get in one of those objectionable shilling text-books that were then so common….",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter IX, in Capricornia, New York: D. Appleton-Century, published 1943, pages 147–8",
          "text": "The box was set down, the stiff buckles of its mildewed straps tackled by a dozen thumby hands, the lid hurled back.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1983, Richard Schickel, chapter 1, in Cary Grant: A Celebration, New York: Hachette, published 2009",
          "text": "For as long as we have known him—and for most of us that has been for the lengths of our lifetimes—he has been the object of, and inspiration for, a delight so innocent and perfect that the attempt to analyse its sources seems an act of ingratitude, a laying on of thumby hands that will inevitably bollix the job.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006, Robert Schmuhl, In So Many Words: Arguments and Adventures, University of Notre Dame Press, page 160",
          "text": "Some people are handy, but I am (no other word fits) thumby.\nThe handy learn to master each moder machine as soon as it hits the market. The thumby never graduate beyond the self-service island at the gas station.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "text": "2015, Julie Lawson, A Ribbon of Shining Steel: The Railway Diary of Kate Cameron, Yale, British Columbia, 1882, Dear Canada series, Scholastic Canada, https://books.google.ca/books?id=h1X2CQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false\nRachel was all thumbs when it came to embroidery, even thumbier than me."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Clumsy, awkward, maladroit, not dextrous, all thumbs"
      ],
      "id": "en-thumby-en-adj-GiwbQWAa",
      "links": [
        [
          "Clumsy",
          "clumsy"
        ],
        [
          "awkward",
          "awkward"
        ],
        [
          "maladroit",
          "maladroit"
        ],
        [
          "dextrous",
          "dextrous"
        ],
        [
          "all thumbs",
          "all thumbs"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "42 16 42",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1914, H.G. Wells, “The Philosopher's Public Library”, in Social Forces in England and America, New York & London: Harper & Bros., page 203",
          "text": "He would distinguish, too, between a library and a news-room, and would find no great attraction in the prospect of supplying the national youth with free but thumby copies of the sixpenny magazines.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Dirtied by thumb marks"
      ],
      "id": "en-thumby-en-adj-ndx669S-",
      "links": [
        [
          "thumb",
          "thumb"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈθʌmi/"
    },
    {
      "audio": "En-au-thumby.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/30/En-au-thumby.ogg/En-au-thumby.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/En-au-thumby.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "thumby"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English 2-syllable words",
    "English adjectives",
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
    "English lemmas",
    "English nouns",
    "English terms suffixed with -y",
    "English terms with IPA pronunciation",
    "English terms with audio links",
    "en:Fingers"
  ],
  "etymology_number": 1,
  "etymology_templates": [
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      "args": {
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      },
      "expansion": "thumb + -y/-ie (diminutive suffix)",
      "name": "suffix"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From thumb + -y/-ie (diminutive suffix).",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "thumbies",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {},
      "expansion": "thumby (plural thumbies)",
      "name": "en-noun"
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "pointling"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English slang"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A little thumb; diminutive term for thumb"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "thumb",
          "thumb"
        ],
        [
          "thumb",
          "thumb#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(slang) A little thumb; diminutive term for thumb"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "slang"
      ]
    }
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  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈθʌmi/"
    },
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      "audio": "En-au-thumby.ogg",
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      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/En-au-thumby.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "pollex"
    },
    {
      "word": "thumb"
    }
  ],
  "word": "thumby"
}

{
  "categories": [
    "English 2-syllable words",
    "English adjectives",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
    "English lemmas",
    "English terms suffixed with -y",
    "English terms with IPA pronunciation",
    "English terms with audio links",
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    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From thumb + -y.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "thumbier",
      "tags": [
        "comparative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "thumbiest",
      "tags": [
        "superlative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "thumbier"
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  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1896, Harriet Beecher Stowe, chapter 29, in The Pearl of Orr's Island: A Story of the Coast of Maine, Boston & New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co",
          "text": "\"Well, I don't tease anybody but the men. I don't tease father or mother or you,—but men are fair game; they are such thumby, blundering creatures, and we can confuse them so.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1904, H.G. Wells, The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth, Book I, Chapter 1",
          "text": "[…] he was propounding an improvement of Professor Armstrong's Heuristic method, whereby at the cost of three or four hundred pounds' worth of apparatus, a total neglect of all other studies and the undivided attention of a teacher of exceptional gifts, an average child might with a peculiar sort of thumby thoroughness learn in the course of ten or twelve years almost as much chemistry as one could get in one of those objectionable shilling text-books that were then so common….",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter IX, in Capricornia, New York: D. Appleton-Century, published 1943, pages 147–8",
          "text": "The box was set down, the stiff buckles of its mildewed straps tackled by a dozen thumby hands, the lid hurled back.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1983, Richard Schickel, chapter 1, in Cary Grant: A Celebration, New York: Hachette, published 2009",
          "text": "For as long as we have known him—and for most of us that has been for the lengths of our lifetimes—he has been the object of, and inspiration for, a delight so innocent and perfect that the attempt to analyse its sources seems an act of ingratitude, a laying on of thumby hands that will inevitably bollix the job.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006, Robert Schmuhl, In So Many Words: Arguments and Adventures, University of Notre Dame Press, page 160",
          "text": "Some people are handy, but I am (no other word fits) thumby.\nThe handy learn to master each moder machine as soon as it hits the market. The thumby never graduate beyond the self-service island at the gas station.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "text": "2015, Julie Lawson, A Ribbon of Shining Steel: The Railway Diary of Kate Cameron, Yale, British Columbia, 1882, Dear Canada series, Scholastic Canada, https://books.google.ca/books?id=h1X2CQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false\nRachel was all thumbs when it came to embroidery, even thumbier than me."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Clumsy, awkward, maladroit, not dextrous, all thumbs"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Clumsy",
          "clumsy"
        ],
        [
          "awkward",
          "awkward"
        ],
        [
          "maladroit",
          "maladroit"
        ],
        [
          "dextrous",
          "dextrous"
        ],
        [
          "all thumbs",
          "all thumbs"
        ]
      ]
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    {
      "categories": [
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          "ref": "1914, H.G. Wells, “The Philosopher's Public Library”, in Social Forces in England and America, New York & London: Harper & Bros., page 203",
          "text": "He would distinguish, too, between a library and a news-room, and would find no great attraction in the prospect of supplying the national youth with free but thumby copies of the sixpenny magazines.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Dirtied by thumb marks"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "thumb",
          "thumb"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
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      "ipa": "/ˈθʌmi/"
    },
    {
      "audio": "En-au-thumby.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/30/En-au-thumby.ogg/En-au-thumby.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/En-au-thumby.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "thumby"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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