fingering

Pluralfingerings (some meanings)

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The use of the fingers in playing a musical instrument.

   Proper fingering on the violin develops only with years of patient practice.

   His fingering on the keyboard stayed smooth even at high speed.

   Note

   Musicians use this word for technique in general, as a mass noun: you judge someone's fingering the way you judge their touch. Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1813) already treats it as an accomplishment, with "a very good notion of fingering" set against taste. When the talk turns to one particular way of playing a passage, the countable a chosen fingering takes over.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A particular arrangement of the fingers used to play a given passage on an instrument.

   The editor suggested an easier fingering for the opening run.

   Guitarists often debate which fingering works best for barre chords.

   Note

   Here the word becomes countable and takes a plural. A chord can have two fingerings, and a run can have an easy one and an awkward one. Editors often print fingerings in a score as numerals above or below the notes. Use "a fingering" or "the fingering" for one solution to one passage. Without an article, the word means the general skill.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   Sexual stimulation with the fingers of one's own or another person's vulva, vagina, or anus.

   Their honest conversation about consent covered fingering and other forms of touch.

   He learned that fingering required patience and clear communication.

4. 4
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of finger.

   Witnesses accused her of fingering an innocent man to the police.

   She stood fingering her necklace nervously throughout the meeting.

   Note

   The -ing form of a verb with unusually scattered meanings, from informing on someone to touching, probing, or playing notes. Every one of them is transitive, so the object usually tells you which verb you are hearing. Fingering an innocent man is informing, fingering a necklace is handling, and fingering a passage is music. As a gerund it can shade into the nouns, such as the musician's technique.

5. 5
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A thin woolen yarn used for making stockings.

   Knitters prize fingering for its fine, even texture in delicate garments.

   The shop stocked fingering in dozens of muted colors.

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