finger v.
1. in senses of manipulating the fingers.
(a) to indulge in sexual foreplay; usu. stimulation of the genitals, usu. female; cit. 1661 comes from a lengthy sexual metaphor; the ‘Mistris’ is variously a ‘shittle-cock’, ‘nightingale’, ‘tennis-ball’, etc all of which come with their own sexual double entendre; cite 1833 refers to female masturbation.
 | Pericles I i: You’re a fair viol, and your sense the strings, Who, finger’d to make man his lawful music, Would draw heaven down. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | ‘On the Praise of fat Men’ in (1969) 215: In winter morning you might catch— / Her hand on cod, he fingering notch. | |
| ‘The Character of a Mistris’ in Merry Drollery Compleat (1875) 61: My Mistris is a Virginal, / And little cost will string her: / She’s often rear’d against the wall / For every man to finger. | |
| [ | | School of Venus (2004) 40: He thrust his hand into my Placket and felt me at his will, tickling my Cunt soundly with his finger [...] This is called Digiting]. |
| Chinese Tale 13: A Nun, together with a Prude, / In wanton ‘fingering’ Attitude. | |
| ‘The Amiable Family’ in Fal-Lal Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 8: An horizontal was once her delight now, / She the fingering did it all right now, / But the young wretch does say. / To me every day, / ‘I wants for to have an upright now!’ . | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | N.Y. Sporting Whip 4 Mar. n.p.: There is no occasion for him to learn to ‘finger his instrument’ as he has particular friends enough to finger it for him. | |
| Cythera’s Hymnal 26: Eve was so very curious, she fingered Adam furious. | |
| Pearl 1 July in (1979) 65: Finger them, fuck them, and do as you please / They have such an itching you never can tease. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Dead Bird (Sydney) 10 Aug. 2/3: ‘I got my finger in this solitaire diamond ring.’ ‘I’m so glad, Charlie’s a nice fellow [...] I thought he would soon give a finger ring’. | |
| My Secret Life (1966) I 76: She told me of the pleasure I had given her when fingering her. | |
| Dead Bird (Sydney) 30 Aug. 5/1: ‘The finger of duty leaves only one thing open to us, and that is to sally forth!’ ‘Objection! [...] Sally Forth’s my girl, and no one ain’t going to finger her’. | |
| Family Connections 15: No doubt the thought of being fingered by a strange man awakened dormant emotions in them. | |
| in Limerick (1953) 210: For the half of that sum / You could finger her bum. | |
| Tropic of Cancer (1963) 7: She lay in Tottenham Court Road with her dress pulled up and fingered herself. | |
| in Limerick (1953) 86: He would finger and fuck one, / But never would suck one—He just couldn’t get used to the smell. | |
| in Erotic Muse (1992) 103: I met the parson’s daughter; / The very first thought came into my mind, / That I could finger her hind quarter! | |
| Homosexual Generation Ch. xvi: Faggots feel toward a man as a woman does, meaning that some who have intercourse by rectum can ‘finger themselves’. | |
| Puberty Blues 25: He’d kissed me the first night. Titted-me-off the second night. And fingered me the next night. | |
| Incest Schoolgirls 🌐 Hard fingers slipping into the panties, then between her pussy lips, fingering the cute youngster. | |
| Guardian G2 19 Nov. He’d already ‘fingered’ the girl. | |
| OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 finger v. A post-pubescent (usu.) behind the bike sheds favourite pastime. Involves inserting your finger(s) into the genitalia of female (if willing). Act often followed by the ‘fingerer’ running over to his mates and inviting them to ‘Smell my fingers!!’ as proof of having done the dirty deed. | |
| (eds) The SAGE Handbook of Fieldwork 195: The researcher heard other students calling her a bisexual, a ‘hetero’, and a lemon (lesbian). The basis of the rumour was that she had ‘fingered’ (digitally penetrated) a girl from another school . | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Glorious Heresies 151: ‘[Y]ou’re not embarrassed when [...] I kiss you or finger you or when you come. | |
| Oxford Student 20 May 33/2: Benji’s fingered someone in the PT toilets so he must be a legend. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Dead Man’s Trousers [22]: Sick Boy holds out his hand. — The number ay lassies this boy has fingered, and they try and tell me aboot the steady hand. | |
| What They Was 170: I was fingering her on her bed . |
(b) to steal; to rob.
| ‘Bonny Kitty’ in Buck’s Delight 53: They trick us poor Tars of our gold; / And when the fly gypsies have finger’d the money, / The bag they give poor Jack to hold. | |
| N.Y. Police Reports 50: Sarah Ann P , 20 years old — a sylph-like figure [...] was brought up for fingering wearing apparel, which belonged to other persons. | |
| Story of a Lancashire Thief 10: One of his best stories was about fingering Lord —’s ticker in St. George’s Church, Hanover Square. | |
| Life on the Mississippi (1914) 278: We lit from our horses and fingered his pockets; we got twelve hundred and sixty two dollars. | |
| Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Finger. 1. To steal. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 29: finger v. 2. To steal. |
(c) (UK Und.) to get hold of, to take possession of.
| Gale Middleton 1 150: When shall we finger the blunt? |
(d) (US Und.) to arrest.
| Tramping with Tramps 386: ‘They like to finger us,’ a hobo said to me [...] in a Western town where we were both doing our best to dodge the local police force. | |
| Hooch! in Partridge DU (1949) 242/1: When a single bootlegger is fingered, he can’t reach us because he won’t even know us. | |
| Little Men, Big World 16: The hoods liked him because he never fingered anybody big. | |
| A-Team 2 (1984) 18: Those are the guys I want you to help me finger! | |
| Kill Your Darlings 290: They fingered Jimmy Rose within hours. | |
| Guardian 17 May 72/2: He got fingered fast. | |
| Donnybrook [ebook] ‘We gotta get before the county boys show up. Finger us into a long jail sentence’. |
(e) in weak use of sense (1a), to touch (against someone’s will).
| Brown Bread in Wengen [ebook] Left home 8.20 in the morning, got there 8.55 squeezed in the rush hour. Anyone finger her in the tube and I shaft them. |
2. in senses of pointing the fingers.
(a) to identify a person or place as a good target for crime.
| It’s a Racket! 224: finger—To identify; usually, ‘to put the finger on.’. | |
| ‘The Snatching of Bookie Bob’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 119: The finger guy must know the party he fingers has plenty of ready scratch. | |
| Parole Chief 126: His job was to get into swank bars, restaurants, and [...] parties to ‘finger’ jobs for the mob. | |
| Conant 67: ‘[Y]ou know how he was killed. He was fingered, set up for the kill’. | |
| Hooky Gear 68: Get me thinkin who we rob that night. Or try. Or why Uncle finger the gaff first place. | |
| Widespread Panic 7: I fingered the jobs. My gang cadged cash and dope. |
(b) (orig. US) to betray or inform on, to identify someone to the police.
| Persons in Hiding 154: I know a job that would bring you in ten thousand dollars, and all you’d have to do would be to finger a certain man for us. | |
| ‘Pitchman’s Cant’ in AS XVII:1 Pt 2 Apr. 91/1: finger. To point a man out to the police, who will arrest him. ‘Some rat who was paying to work the town fingered him and now . . .’. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
| Little Men, Big World 144: He didn’t finger us, Arky. Leon is a double-crosser but he’s a little squeamish about murder. No. We were fingered, all right, by somebody who knew, but I’m sure it wasn’t Leon. | |
| Panic in Needle Park (1971) 149: She’ll go up there and finger the guy for us when he has the stuff on him, and we’ll bust him. | |
| Doing Time 189: finger: to finger a place means to pilfer or filch. | |
![[Can]](/static/img/flags/can.png "Canada") | Go-Boy! 291: Fingered by the creep who obtained the getaway car. | |
| in Little Legs 194: finger, to to grass or inform. | |
| Canberra Times 8 Jan. 21: The ideal situation is to get fingered when you are in the process of leaving voluntarily anyway. | |
| (con. 1920s) Legs 113: You might get through the lineup without being fingered, but that won’t stop you getting thirty days in Bridewell. | |
| Bad Debts (2012) [ebook] The girl wouldn’t talk to the cops. But she fingered Ronnie Bishop as the one who set it up. | |
| Brown Bread in Wengen [ebook] ‘Who you wanting fingered then? Kind of dosh you offering make it worth my while?’. | |
| Observer mag. 9 Jan. 13: The informant then fingered Orlando as the man who later shot Tupac. | |
| Night Gardener 284: Dominique Lyon’s girlfriend is in the process of fingering him for the Jamal White killing. | |
| (con. 1972) What It Was 35: It had then been assumed that he, Odum, had fingered Carpenter. | |
| Star IOL (SA) 18 May 🌐 Major-General Lazarus was also fingered in the court documents. | |
| Zero at the Bone [ebook] Louise described the same young male fingered by the neighbour. | |
| I Am Already Dead 122: ‘If you’re sure that you didn’t leave anything in Drew’s place that might finger you, we’re golden’. | |
| Empty Wigs (t/s) 323: ‘I am not a grass... However - your friend Marty is. [...] Marty... he fingered Andy’. |
(c) in general use, to identify someone (as).
| Thief 343: There were people in there I didn’t much take to. Sure. But finger them for Harry? No way! | |
| Fort Apache, The Bronx 8: If he was crazy enough to finger himself he was crazy enough to do something worse. | |
| London Fields 260: In the end, though, I’m fingering you for a Femme Fatale. | |
| Homeboy 188: A kilo of dope for the character who can finger the dudes who took down his theater. | |
| ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 29: finger v. 1. To accuse or blame. |
(d) to put a curse on.
| Neon Wilderness (1986) 82: He handles the bucket ’n sponge ’n in between he fingers the guy I’m fightin’, ’n if it’s close he fingers the ref ’n judges. |
(e) to point out.
| Pro Football 129: Kiesling [...] passed by the magazine-cover kids to finger little-known Glick [HDAS]. | |
| Wax Boom 12: Old Man fingers this platoon because we got Proctor. | |
| Airtight Willie and Me 36: I was turning my head to yank the package he’d fingered. | |
| Fort Apache, The Bronx 89: The sisters will finger the organisers for you. | |
| Powder 53: Keva breathed a sigh of relief that The Wheeze hadn’t fingered him by name in his plan. | |
| Man-Eating Typewriter Would the inspectors finger me as this frightful froggy fugitive: . |