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
  • The company has refined the trailer somewhat in that time, but its main selling points remain the same: the ability to hitch itself to a towing vehicle and set itself up at the campground.
    Bryan Hood, Robb Report, 8 May 2025
  • Instead, women’s football has been hitched to the Festival Girl Power Summer brandwagon.
    Megan Feringa, New York Times, 13 May 2025
Verb
  • In Nu-Nerd, fashion flips the script of what society deems is cool by embracing the antithesis the high fashion trends.
    Angela Velasquez, Sourcing Journal, 30 May 2025
  • United Launch Alliance’s years-long delays with its new Vulcan rocket have flipped the script for national security missions, making SpaceX the new reliable provider.
    Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 30 May 2025
Verb
  • Everyone — from those actually paying to the ones still bumming a log-in — wants to know how Netflix and other streaming services’ crackdowns on password sharing affect them.
    Savannah Salazar, Vulture, 20 May 2025
  • Fans who hoped to see them on the red carpet at last week’s Met Gala were bummed.
    Lisa Gutierrez, Kansas City Star, 11 May 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
  • Home care providers can invoke this right to stop union dues skimming.
    Mark Mix, New York Daily News, 22 May 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 4 Jun. 2025.

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