thumbed

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of thumb.

   The editor thumbed the manuscript, dog-earing pages as she went.

   Hitchhikers thumbed rides along the dusty highway all summer.

   Note

   One regular -ed spelling serves both the simple past (she thumbed the pages) and the participle after have or be (the pages were thumbed). The participle often settles into an adjective through the 'worn by handling' meaning, so a well-thumbed dictionary is one that has been used often. Besides page-turning and hitchhiking, the verb has a firearms use: a revolver's hammer thumbed back.

2. 2
   adjectivein compounds

   Having a thumb of a particular kind, as indicated by a preceding modifier.

   Much like 'left-handed' or 'blue-eyed,' it pins down a body feature: here, the sort of thumb someone has.

   The portrait showed a heavy-thumbed laborer gripping his tools.

   Surgeons often have nimble, slender-thumbed hands suited to fine work.

   Note

   A word that rarely stands alone. It works as the second half of a hyphenated compound, as in sore-thumbed after a day of video games. It is not comparable, so it takes no more or most of its own, and any grading belongs to the modifier in front. A well-thumbed book is something else: it comes from the verb form and describes wear, not a hand.

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