Word.ws English Dictionary

under one's thumb

under one's thumb prepositional phrase: completely controlled by someone; at someone's command.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) Completely controlled by someone; at someone's command.
    • She has the entire crew under her thumb. They would do anything for her.
    • ...when you find a man under his wife's thumb you can always be sure there's a soft spot in him somewhere.1912, Willa Cather, The Bohemian Girl

Questions about under one's thumb

What does under one's thumb mean?
Under one's thumb means completely controlled by someone; at someone's command.
What part of speech is under one's thumb?
Under one's thumb is a prepositional phrase.

Words near under one's thumb in the dictionary

  1. under one's breath
  2. under one's feet
  3. under one's hand
  4. under one's hat
  5. under one's own steam
  6. under one's thumb
  7. under one's very eyes
  8. under one's very nose
  9. under one's wing
  10. under over
  11. under pain of

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: under one's thumb (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-under one's thumb.ogg.

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