give the finger

give the finger verb: to make an obscene gesture (towards someone) by closing the fist and extending the middle finger upwards.

Image: Andrew Ormberg ( TheTruthiness ), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

give the finger (third-person singular simple present gives the finger, present participle giving the finger, simple past gave the finger, past participle given the finger)

(transitive, usually) To make an obscene gesture (towards someone) by closing the fist and extending the middle finger upwards.
- Zelda gave Travis the finger after he cut her off in traffic.
Synonyms:

flick off, flip off, flip the bird
(intransitive) To make any sort of gesture extending one of the fingers above the others.

third-person singular present	gives the finger
present participle	giving the finger
past	gave the finger
past participle	given the finger
alternative uncommon	give the fingers

What does give the finger mean?: Give the finger means to make an obscene gesture (towards someone) by closing the fist and extending the middle finger upwards.
What part of speech is give the finger?: Give the finger is a verb.
What is the past tense of give the finger?: The past tense of give the finger is gave the finger.

Adapted from Wiktionary: give the finger (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “give the finger.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/give_the_finger. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.