finger
part of speech
noun (finger, fingers); verb (finger, fingers, fingered — touch with fingers)
meaning for a pupil
1) One of the five long parts at the end of your hand (often the thumb is counted separately). tree →
2) Something shaped like a finger: "fish fingers". tree →
3) As a verb, to touch or feel with your fingers. tree →
4) To slip through someone's fingers means to escape from them. tree →
sense in the lessons
In maths, we count on our fingers; ten fingers are why we count in tens. In science, fingers have nails and fingerprints, which are different for every person. In safety: keep fingers away from doors, blades, fans and animals' mouths. Phrases: fingerprint, fingertip, keep your fingers crossed, point a finger, lift a finger.
examples
- I have five fingers on each hand. tree →
- Count on your fingers. tree →
- Keep your fingers away from the door hinge. tree →
- Everyone has different fingerprints. tree →
- Don't point your finger at people. tree →
- Fingers crossed we win! tree →
- She cut her finger on the paper. tree →
- He didn't lift a finger to help. tree →
- I luckily slipped through her fingers.’ tree →
note
Plural "fingers". Usually we have 10 fingers including thumbs, 8 not counting thumbs. In maths problems, "fingers" can mean counting by ones.
In the corpora
- Recorder players cover the holes with the soft, flat pads of their fingers, because hard fingertips leave gaps that make squeaks.
- Playing slowly first lets fingers learn the right moves; fast practice full of mistakes trains the mistakes.
- Many cartoon characters, like Mickey Mouse and the Simpsons, have four fingers because it is quicker to draw and looks clearer.
- On the recorder, B, A and G are played with the left hand alone, using one, two and three fingers.
- An elephant's trunk has tens of thousands of muscle bundles and can hold things as delicately as fingers.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «finger» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.