verb. (old).—1. To drain a glass upon the thumb-nail: the glass must be emptied so that there remains only a drop that will not run off the nail. See SUPERNACULUM.
2. (common).—(a) To paw, to MESS ABOUT, TO GROPE A WOMAN; and (b) to possess one carnally: hence a WELL-THUMBED GIRL = a foundered whore. Also THUMBLE.
1606. Wily Beguiled [HAWKINS, The Origin of the English Drama, iii. 317]. Well, I’ll not stay with her: stay, quotha? To be yauld and jaul’d at, and tumbled and THUMBLED, and tost and turn’d, as I am by an old hag.
Among COLLOQUIAL PHRASES are: A THUMB UNDER THE GIRDLE = an indication of gravity or sadness; RULE OF THUMB (q.v.), adding quot. infra; ALL HIS FINGERS ARE THUMBS (of a clumsy person: also THUMBLESS); TO BITE THE THUMB (see BITE); UNDER ONE’S THUMB = under complete control, subservient; FINGER AND THUMB = inseparable, with tied navels. (It. ‘Hanno legato il bellico insieme.’) Further, a WELL-THUMBED book = a rough-handled book; one ‘thumbed’ out of respectability; THUMB-MARKED = bearing unmistakable traces of an individual artist, reader, performer, etc. Also PROVERBIAL (and other) SAYINGS: ‘When you come to this place of ease, Place your elbows on your knees, Behind your ears stick both your thumbs, Give a heave, and out it comes.’ ‘If you BITE YOUR THUMB there’s hell to pay.’ (See BITE).
1534. UDALL, Roister Doister, i. 3. Ah, ECHE FINGER IS A THOMBE to-day me thinke.
1614. OVERBURY, Characters, ‘An Olde Man.’ They call the THUMBE UNDER THE GIRDLE, gravitie; and because they can hardly smell at all, their posies are under their girdles.
1607. T. WALKINGTON, The Optick Glasse of Humors, 67. Of all men wee count a melancholicke man the very sponge of all sad humors, the aqua-fortis of mery company, A THUMBE VNDER TH’GIRDLE, the contemplatiue slumberer, that sleepes waking &c.
1648. HERRICK, Hesperides, 333, ‘Leprosie in Houses.’
| When to a house I come, and see | |
| The genius wastefull, more than free: | |
| The servants THUMBLESSE, yet to eat, | |
| With lawlesse tooth the floure of wheate. |
1753. RICHARDSON, The History of Sir Charles Grandison, v. 56. She remembers her delinquency, so she is obliged to be silent: I have her UNDER MY THUMB.
1809. MALKIN, Gil Blas [ROUTLEDGE], 277. The tenants were all UNDER MY THUMB. Ibid., 378. He is an old hunks who wants to keep me UNDER HIS THUMB.
1859. H. KINGSLEY, Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn, ix. He is UNDER THE THUMB of that doctor.
1861. T. HUGHES, Tom Brown at Oxford, xxi. We never learnt any thing in the navy when I was a youngster, except a little RULE-OF-THUMB mathematics.
