a. [f. THUMB sb. and v. + -ED.]
1. adj. Provided with or having thumbs (of a certain kind); chiefly in comb. as black-thumbed.
c. 1529. Skelton, E. Rumming, 41. A man would haue pytty To se how she is gumbed, Fyngered and thumbed.
1663. Butler, Hud., I. II. 421. The Knight of Greece … With whom his black-thumb’d Ancestor Was Comerade.
2. ppl. a. Of a book or the like: Having the pages soiled or worn by the thumbs of readers; showing signs of much use. Often preceded by an adverb, as little, much, well-thumbed.
a. 1800. S. Pegge, Anecd. Eng. Lang. (1803), 232. Our old thumbed friend, Littleton’s dictionary tells us [etc.].
1837. Lockhart, Scott, xxv. He produced a well-thumbed copy.
1883. Symonds, Shaks. Predec., vii. (1900), 197. They [plays] perished in thumbed MSS. … before arriving at the honours of the press.
1886. Stevenson, Kidnapped, xxiii. An old, thumbed, greasy pack of cards.
