Word.ws English Dictionary

thumbkins

thumbkins is the plural of thumbkin.

Meaning of thumbkin

Noun

thumbkin (plural thumbkins)

  1. (historical) An instrument of torture for compressing the thumb; a thumbscrew.
  2. (childish, rare) The thumb.
    • Thumbkin is the pusher.
      Pointer shows us where to go.
      Tall-man wears the thimble,
      And helps us all to sew.1895, Margaret Naomi MacArthur, Kindergarten Review, Finger Play, page 75

Questions about thumbkins

What is thumbkins the plural of?
Thumbkins is the plural of thumbkin.

Words near thumbkins in the dictionary

  1. thumbing down
  2. thumbing one's nose
  3. thumbing through
  4. thumbings
  5. thumbkin
  6. thumbkins
  7. thumbless
  8. thumbless wave
  9. thumblessness
  10. thumblike
  11. thumbling

Source and license

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