Thumb

How to spell thumb

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce thumb

What does thumb mean?

1. nounThe short, thick first digit of the human hand, set apart from the four fingers.

Thumb in a sentence

• I cut my thumb on a tin.

• I hurt my thumb opening a tin.

Where does thumb come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English word, descending from the Old English thuma, which simply named the short, thick finger set apart from the other four. It traces back to a Proto-Germanic root thumon, related to Dutch duim and German Daumen, and ultimately to an Indo-European root meaning 'to swell' or 'to be thick', the thumb being literally 'the thick one'. The same swelling sense links it to words like 'tumour' and 'thigh'. For most of its history the word had no b at all; the silent b was tacked on in later Middle English by scribes who modelled it on words like 'numb' and 'limb', where a b followed an m. That decorative, unpronounced b is exactly the spelling trap, since nothing in the sound TH AH1 M warns you it is there.

How the word is built

• thumb (from Old English thuma: the thick finger)
• silent b (added later by analogy)