thumb

1
as in to hitch
to travel by securing free rides thought I'd thumb into town instead of paying for a cab

Synonyms & Similar Words

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2
as in to flip
to turn over pages in an idle or cursory manner I thumbed through the book during the flight but was too distracted to really read it

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of thumb Some guards thumbed their noses at the FAA safety rules that flight attendants were supposed to enforce while airborne, multiple flight attendants recalled. Mckenzie Funk, ProPublica, 1 Apr. 2025 What’s worse is, some of the guilty ones thumb their noses at the state and refuse to pay fines, forcing the state to go to court. Sun Sentinel Editorial Board, Sun Sentinel, 26 Mar. 2025 Maine high school athlete Cassidy Carlisle expounded on her message to Gov. Janet Mills as the state continued to thumb its nose as President Donald Trump and maintain its transgender-athlete policies in girls' and women’s sports. Ryan Gaydos, Fox News, 24 Mar. 2025 Williams seemed to thumb his nose at the proceedings. Ronan Farrow, The New Yorker, 24 Mar. 2025 See All Example Sentences for thumb
Recent Examples of Synonyms for thumb
Verb
  • Instead, women’s football has been hitched to the Festival Girl Power Summer brandwagon.
    Megan Feringa, New York Times, 13 May 2025
  • Load it with lumber, hitch a trailer, or even drive into a strong headwind, and that figure can drop faster than your enthusiasm on a Monday morning.
    New Atlas, New Atlas, 13 May 2025
Verb
  • The town of London, 75 miles south of Lexington, was devastated − with entire neighborhoods razed with homes reduced to rubble, downed power lines and cars flipped and strewn onto yards.
    John Bacon, USA Today, 20 May 2025
  • The intimacy coordinator would come over with an iPad and flip through new positions.
    Matt Donnelly, Variety, 19 May 2025
Verb
  • It is now applied to anyone who has not visited the shower trailer and is desperately trying to bum a cig.
    Amanda Petrusich, New Yorker, 14 Apr. 2025
  • Grant invites Dina on the one-on-one, leaving the rest of the women feeling like this: Even though they’re bummed, the women keep their comments positive.
    Kristen Baldwin, EW.com, 18 Feb. 2025
Verb
  • This is because of the increasing demands for networking and switches to connect exponentially larger clusters, from spine to leaf in the front end and back end, rack to rack and accelerator to accelerator.
    Beth Kindig, Forbes, 19 Dec. 2024
  • Such a cacophony means that the reader keeps having to leaf back to make sense of the storyline.
    Ruth Margalit, The New York Review of Books, 30 Mar. 2023
Verb
  • Rosemary hitchhiked to the prison wearing a simple crepe and silk shawl to comfort her husband, brushing aside fears about the Zodiac Killer operating in the area.
    Susannah Cahalan, Rolling Stone, 17 Apr. 2025
  • The complaint alleges that staff regularly sent students unattended to hitchhike for errands.
    Glynis Kazanjian, Baltimore Sun, 7 Apr. 2025
Verb
  • Just sandpipers skimming the surf, green sea turtles digging moonlit nests — and, every so often, Richard Gere strolling on the beach.
    Kathryn Romeyn, HollywoodReporter, 22 Apr. 2025
  • Marketplace websites that act as middlemen for private sales offer some protection for buyers but also skim a fee from each sale, which can inflate prices slightly.
    Simon Hill, Wired News, 22 Apr. 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Thumb.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/thumb. Accessed 28 May. 2025.

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