Word.ws English Dictionary

thumbing down

thumbing down is the present participle and gerund of thumb down.

Meaning of thumb down

Verb

thumb down (third-person singular simple present thumbs down, present participle thumbing down, simple past and past participle thumbed down)

  1. To get (a passing vehicle) to stop and give one a ride, signalling to the driver by holding out one's thumb (as a hitchhiker).
    • I was stranded in the middle of nowhere, but luckily I managed to thumb down a passing car.
  2. To disapprove or reject.

Questions about thumbing down

What is thumbing down the present participle and gerund of?
Thumbing down is the present participle and gerund of thumb down.

Words near thumbing down in the dictionary

  1. thumbiest
  2. thumbikin
  3. thumbikins
  4. thumbing
  5. thumbing a ride
  6. thumbing down
  7. thumbing one's nose
  8. thumbing through
  9. thumbings
  10. thumbkin
  11. thumbkins

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: thumbing down (page history and authors); thumb down (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: “thumbing down.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/thumbing_down. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.