different between pollex vs thumby

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin pollex.

Noun

pollex (plural pollices)

1. The thumb; the first, or preaxial, digit of the forelimb, corresponding to the hallux in the hind limb. In birds, the pollex is the joint which bears the alula or bastard wing.
   • 1955, Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita:

     We came to know the curious roadside species, Hitchhiking Man, Homo pollex of science, with all its many sub-species and forms.

Derived terms

• pollical

See also

• hallux

References

• pollex in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Latin

Etymology

Perhaps cognate with Proto-Slavic *pal?c?, but contaminated with Latin polle? (hence pollex not *p?lex).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /?pol.leks/, [?p?l???ks?]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /?pol.leks/, [?p?l??ks]

Noun

pollex m (genitive pollicis); third declension

1. thumb
2. great toe
3. a unit of distance, equivalent to approximately 24.6 mm; one uncia (see also: Ancient Roman units of measurement)
4. seal (insignia)

Declension

Third-declension noun.

Derived terms

• pollic?ris

Descendants

References

• pollex in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• pollex in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• pollex in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• pollex in William Smith, editor (1848) A Dictionary of Greek Biography and Mythology, London: John Murray

English

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

From thumb +? -y/-ie (diminutive suffix).

Noun

thumby (plural thumbies)

1. (slang) A little thumb; diminutive term for thumb

Synonyms

• pollex
• thumb

See also

• pointling

Etymology 2

From thumb +? -y.

Adjective

thumby (comparative thumbier, superlative thumbiest)

1. Clumsy, awkward, maladroit, not dextrous, all thumbs
   • 1896, Harriet Beecher Stowe, The Pearl of Orr's Island: A Story of the Coast of Maine, Boston & New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Chapter 29, [1]

     "Well, I don't tease anybody but the men. I don't tease father or mother or you,—but men are fair game; they are such thumby, blundering creatures, and we can confuse them so."

   • 1904, H.G. Wells, The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth, Book I, Chapter 1 [2]

     […] he was propounding an improvement of Professor Armstrong's Heuristic method, whereby at the cost of three or four hundred pounds' worth of apparatus, a total neglect of all other studies and the undivided attention of a teacher of exceptional gifts, an average child might with a peculiar sort of thumby thoroughness learn in the course of ten or twelve years almost as much chemistry as one could get in one of those objectionable shilling text-books that were then so common….

   • 1938, Xavier Herbert, Capricornia, New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1943, Chapter IX, p. 147-8, [3]

     The box was set down, the stiff buckles of its mildewed straps tackled by a dozen thumby hands, the lid hurled back.

   • 1983, Richard Schickel, Cary Grant: A Celebration, New York: Hachette, 2009, Chapter 1, [4]

     For as long as we have known him—and for most of us that has been for the lengths of our lifetimes—he has been the object of, and inspiration for, a delight so innocent and perfect that the attempt to analyse its sources seems an act of ingratitude, a laying on of thumby hands that will inevitably bollix the job.

   • 2006, Robert Schmuhl, In So Many Words: Arguments and Adventures, University of Notre Dame Press, p.160, [5]

     Some people are handy, but I am (no other word fits) thumby.

     The handy learn to master each moder machine as soon as it hits the market. The thumby never graduate beyond the self-service island at the gas station.

   • 2015, Julie Lawson, A Ribbon of Shining Steel: The Railway Diary of Kate Cameron, Yale, British Columbia, 1882, Dear Canada series, Scholastic Canada, [6]

     Rachel was all thumbs when it came to embroidery, even thumbier than me.

2. Dirtied by thumb marks
   • 1914, H.G. Wells, Social Forces in England and America, New York & London: Harper & Bros., "The Philosopher's Public Library," p. 203, [7]

     He would distinguish, too, between a library and a news-room, and would find no great attraction in the prospect of supplying the national youth with free but thumby copies of the sixpenny magazines.