[L. THUMB sb.]
1. trans. To feel with or as with the thumb; to handle.
† To thumb the belt of, to be in subjection to. Sc. Obs.
1623, 1711. [see THUMBING vbl. sb.].
a. 1758. Ramsay, Addr. of Thanks, xxvii. They will be forc’d to thumb your belt At last, and a’ knock under.
1765. E. Thompson, Meretriciad (ed. 6), 30. None had the art To thumb the guineas.
1894. Daily News, 17 Jan., 3/1. The ladies and children … stroke his moist nose…; the men punch his ribs and thumb his brisket.
1898. F. Whitmore, in Atlantic Monthly, April, 501/1. He thumbed an edge-tool like an artist.
2. To play (a wind instrument, an air) with or as with the thumbs; to perform or manipulate clumsily. Also intr. with it.
1593. G. Harvey, New Lett. Notable Contents, C ij b. If the Princock must be playing vpon them, that can play vpon his warped sconce, as vpon a tabor, or a fiddle, let himselfe thanke himselfe, if he be kindly thummed.
1641. Milton, Animadv., ii. Wks. 1851, III. 209. If men should ever be thumming the drone of one plaine Song, it would bee a dull Opiat to the most wakefull attention.
1675. Cotton, Scoffer Scoft, 93. One winds a Horn … Another thumbs it on a Tabor.
1755. Johnson, Thumb, to handle awkwardly.
3. To soil or wear (esp. a book) with the thumbs in using or handling; hence, to read much or often.
1644–7. Cleveland, Char. Lond. Diurn., 1. The Emperick-Divines of the Assembly,… thumbe it accordingly.
1673. [R. Leigh], Transp. Reh., 43. Romances are thumb’d more than St. Thomas.
c. 1720. Prior, Female Plaeton, 9. Shall I thumb holy books, confin’d With Abigails, forsaken?
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., iii. I. 391. Within a week after it had arrived it had been thumbed by twenty families.
1878. Arber, Pref. to Caxton’s Reynard, p. xii. These early editions were thumbed out of existence.
4. a. To press, smooth, clean, spread, or smear with the thumb. b. To cover (the touchhole of a cannon) with the thumb; cf. THUMB-STALL d. (Funk’s Stand. Dict., 1895.)
1768. Ross, Helenore, III. 112. Honest Jean … thumb’d it [a cutty spoon] round and gae’t unto the squire.
1856. J. Ballantine, Poems, 185. The tither cake, wi’ butter thoom’d.
1899. B. Capes, Lady of Darkness, iv. 220. A seed thumbed in too deep is often choked from sprouting.
1904. Daily Chron., 7 July, 4/4. To thumb down the tobacco in his pipe.
