Word.ws English Dictionary

put one's finger on

put one's finger on verb: to identify, specify, name or pick out.

Verb

put one's finger on (third-person singular simple present puts one's finger on, present participle putting one's finger on, simple past and past participle put one's finger on)

  1. (idiomatic) To identify, specify, name or pick out.
    • There’s something wrong, but I can’t put my finger on it.
    • He had the quick witted imagination to put his finger right on the correct method of attacking a problem but no patience to see it through to the bitter end.2011, Derek Rosser, Earning a Crust, page 86

Forms of put one's finger on

third-person singular presentputs one's finger on
present participleputting one's finger on
past participleput one's finger on
pastput one's finger on

Questions about put one's finger on

What does put one's finger on mean?
Put one's finger on means to identify, specify, name or pick out.
What part of speech is put one's finger on?
Put one's finger on is a verb.
What is the past tense of put one's finger on?
The past tense of put one's finger on is put one's finger on.

Words near put one's finger on in the dictionary

  1. put one's ducks in a row
  2. put one's feet up
  3. put one's finger in a hole
  4. put one's finger in the dyke
  5. put one's finger in the fire
  6. put one's finger on
  7. put one's fist to
  8. put one's foot down
  9. put one's foot down on
  10. put one's foot down upon
  11. put one's foot in it

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: put one's finger on (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-put one's finger on.ogg.

Cite this entry: “put one's finger on.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/put_one%27s_finger_on. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.