fingerprints

Noun

fingerprint (plural fingerprints)

1. The natural pattern of ridges on the tips of human fingers, unique to each individual.
2. The pattern left on a surface where an uncovered fingertip has touched, especially as used to identify the person who touched the surface.
   • Nervously, he wiped the gun of fingerprints real and imaginary with the stocking-covered fingers.1974, Patricia Highsmith, chapter 7, in Ripley's Game

   Synonyms:

   finger impression

3. (broadly) A unique combination of features that serves as an identification of something.
   • acoustic fingerprint
4. A unique identification for a public key in asymmetric cryptography.
5. (figuratively) A trace that gives evidence of someone's involvement.
   • And continue to ask yourself the question, could the incredible complexity of the human body with its multitudinous specialized functions have come into being completely by chance or is it another fingerprint of God?1999, Arvin S. Gibson, Fingerprints of God, →ISBN, page 141

See all 7 meanings of fingerprint