fingered

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of finger.

   She fingered the edge of the worn photograph as she spoke.

   Detectives believe he was fingered by a former associate.

   Note

   One regular spelling serves every past use of the verb, so the surrounding construction does the work. In the passive it can carry the informing sense, as in a man fingered by an associate. Musicians use it for scores marked with which fingers play which notes, as in a passage fingered for the left hand. The same spelling also does duty as the compound adjective in long-fingered.

2. 2
   adjectivein compounds

   Having fingers of a particular kind, shape, or number.

   The portrait showed a delicate, long-fingered woman holding a fan.

   Many climbing lizards have broad-fingered feet suited to gripping bark.

   Note

   A noun made into an adjective with -ed, the same "having" pattern as bearded, and it rarely stands alone. It wants a first element saying what kind: long-fingered, broad-fingered, five-fingered. Before a noun the compound is hyphenated, as in a long-fingered hand. It does not take more or most. Any comparison falls on the first part instead, as in longer-fingered.

3. 3
   adjective

   Divided into or bearing parts that radiate from a central base like the spread fingers of a hand.

   Botanists described the fern's fingered fronds radiating from a single stalk.

   The fungus produces fingered structures that branch like a splayed hand.

   Similardigitate

   Note

   Botanists and anatomists use it for shape alone. Nothing here has fingers, only lobes, leaflets or branches spreading from one point. Its Latin-derived twin is digitate, the term of formal description, and fingered is the plain-English equivalent for fronds or a branching fungus. Unlike the compound adjective, it stands on its own: fingered fronds, not long-fingered ones.

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