Word.ws English Dictionary

thumb on the scale

thumb on the scale noun: an act of bias or a tactic for cheating which creates a situation that unfairly benefits one party involved in an interaction.

Noun

thumb on the scale (usually uncountable, plural thumbs on the scale or thumbs on the scales)

  1. (idiomatic, usually) An act of bias or a tactic for cheating which creates a situation that unfairly benefits one party involved in an interaction.
    • I'll try to give an impartial account without putting my thumb on the scale.1982, Emory A. Griffin, Getting Together, →ISBN, page 68
    • [E]ven to characterize these cases as affirmative action is misleading. What critics often present as a thumb on the scale for "less qualified" individuals may in fact reflect only necessary adjustments in the way the scale is calibrated.1991, Deborah L. Rhode, Justice and Gender, →ISBN, page 187

Forms of thumb on the scale

pluralthumbs on the scale
pluralthumbs on the scales
alternative formthumb on the scales

Origin of thumb on the scale

An allusion to a butcher who cheats customers by surreptitiously using a thumb to apply extra pressure to the scale when weighing meat to calculate the price of a sale.

Questions about thumb on the scale

What does thumb on the scale mean?
Thumb on the scale means an act of bias or a tactic for cheating which creates a situation that unfairly benefits one party involved in an interaction.
What part of speech is thumb on the scale?
Thumb on the scale is a noun.
What is the plural of thumb on the scale?
The plural of thumb on the scale is thumbs on the scale.

Words near thumb on the scale in the dictionary

  1. thumb index
  2. thumb indexes
  3. thumb knot
  4. thumb knots
  5. Thumb Master
  6. thumb on the scale
  7. thumb on the scales
  8. thumb one's nose
  9. thumb piano
  10. thumb pianos
  11. thumb position

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: thumb on the scale (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-thumb on the scale.ogg.

Cite this entry: “thumb on the scale.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/thumb_on_the_scale. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.