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stranger
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Hi, friends, For about 25 years, I've been trying to remember a latinate word which means the same thing as thumb-indexed, as of a dictionary. If you happen to know this word, PLEASE e-mail me at penelopeschott@comcast.net. It's been driving me nuts. Thanks. p.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Hi Penelope,
Have you tried a reverse dictionary lookup? I don't have a link handy, but you could try googling "reverse dictionary" or wait for someone to answer that has a link handy.
Don't be a stranger (for long)...
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Dear Penelope ~
Welcome to the fun house. I hope you stick around long enough to discover how much fun we really are.
Suggestion: edit your post to give your e-mail address as "penelopeschott AT comcast.net" as a way of preventing harvesters from lifting it from this board and targeting you with every imaginable bit of Spam.
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www.onelook.com has a reverse dictionary. welcome, penelope!
formerly known as etaoin...
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stranger
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Alas, no luck. But I thank you for the suggestion. Best, p.
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interesting that "index" comes from the Latin for "forefinger",
so a thumb-index....
so, anyway, something tumere? tumere digitus?
ain't web-searching fun?
Last edited by etaoin; 01/12/06 05:34 PM.
formerly known as etaoin...
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fwiw Penelope, I used the Onelook reverse and entered <*ndex> to ensure capture of all variants. This nets more types of indices than you can shake a stick at, from “a index” to “zygomaticoauricular index” some 687 entries later! Amongst them I found tab index, which seems about right to me. Not Latinate, but is it close to what you had been thinking of? Technical description
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what Penelope describes as thumb indexes are, in fact, called thumb indexes. M-W Unabridged, which is thumb-indexed, refers to them as.. thumb indexes. I shall search OED for something Latinate; but I am not sanguine.
..no joy: thumb-index == thumb-register
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The Latin for thumb is pollex, fwiw.
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pollex? from etymonline: Quote:
thumb
O.E. žuma, from W.Gmc. *thuman- (cf. O.Fris. thuma, O.S., O.H.G. thumo, Ger. Daumen, Du. duim "thumb," O.N. žumall "thumb of a glove"), lit. "the stout or thick (finger)," from PIE *tum- "swell" (cf. L. tumere "to swell," tumidus "swollen;" Avestan tuma "fat;" see thigh).
formerly known as etaoin...
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