Word.ws English Dictionary

look through one's fingers

look through one's fingers verb: to deliberately ignore, overlook, or turn a blind eye to someone's mistake or misconduct, rather than taking corrective action.

Verb

look through one's fingers (third-person singular simple present looks through one's fingers, present participle looking through one's fingers, simple past and past participle looked through one's fingers)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To deliberately ignore, overlook, or turn a blind eye to someone's mistake or misconduct, rather than taking corrective action.

Forms of look through one's fingers

third-person singular presentlooks through one's fingers
present participlelooking through one's fingers
past participlelooked through one's fingers
pastlooked through one's fingers

Questions about look through one's fingers

What does look through one's fingers mean?
Look through one's fingers means to deliberately ignore, overlook, or turn a blind eye to someone's mistake or misconduct, rather than taking corrective action.
What part of speech is look through one's fingers?
Look through one's fingers is a verb.
What is the past tense of look through one's fingers?
The past tense of look through one's fingers is looked through one's fingers.

Words near look through one's fingers in the dictionary

  1. look shy
  2. look snappy
  3. look the other way
  4. look the part
  5. look through
  6. look through one's fingers
  7. look through rose-colored glasses
  8. look through rose-tinted glasses
  9. look to
  10. look under rocks
  11. look up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: look through one's fingers (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.

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