putting the finger on
putting the finger on is the present participle and gerund of put the finger on.
Meaning of put the finger on
Verb
put the finger on (third-person singular simple present puts the finger on, present participle putting the finger on, simple past and past participle put the finger on)
- Synonym of finger (“to report to or identify for the authorities; to inform on”)
- "And for God's sake watch out. And I mean it. The Big Man'll get you if he possibly can and a police escort to the train would only put the finger on you. Take a cab and keep out of sight."1954, Ian Fleming, “True or False?”, in Live and Let Die, London: Pan Books, published 1957, page 0
- Synonyms:
- finger
Questions about putting the finger on
- What is putting the finger on the present participle and gerund of?
- Putting the finger on is the present participle and gerund of put the finger on.
Words near putting the finger on in the dictionary
- putting the clock forward
- putting the clocks back
- putting the cork back in the bottle
- putting the dead wood on
- putting the fear of God into
- putting the finger on
- putting the frighteners on someone
- putting the genie back in the bottle
- putting the hammer down
- putting the heat on
- putting the herd on someone
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: putting the finger on (page history and authors); put the 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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Cite this entry: “putting the finger on.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/putting_the_finger_on. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.