thumbnailn.
1. The nail of the thumb. Often in allusive expressions; with quot. 1604 cf. supernaculum adv., n., and int.
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the world > life > the body > nail > [noun] > thumb nail
thumbnail1604
1604 T. Dekker & T. Middleton Honest Whore i. v. 167 Cast. Pledge him... Flu. So: I ha done you right, on my thumbe naile.
1648 R. Herrick Hesperides sig. R5 Be bold my Booke, nor be abasht, or feare The cutting Thumb-naile, or the Brow severe.
1727 W. Somerville Sweet-scented Miser 27 On his thumb-nail it might be wrote ‘A penny sav'd's a penny got.’
1841–4 R. W. Emerson Nature in Wks. (1906) I. 228 The whole code..may be written on the thumbnail.
2. transferred. A drawing or sketch of the size of the thumbnail; hence figurative a brief word-picture. Chiefly attributive, as thumbnail sketch.
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society > leisure > the arts > literature > prose > other non-story prose > [noun] > short sketch or description
portraiture1650
word picture1835
cameo1851
thumbnail sketch1852
vignette1880
pastel1890
the mind > language > speech > narration > description or act of describing > [noun] > outlining or sketching > sketch or brief description
adumbration1552
specimen1665
sketch1668
superficies1670
silhouette1819
outline sketch1835
thumbnail1900
society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > painting and drawing > drawing > [noun] > a drawing > rough or preliminary
skiagraphy1594
model1613
shadow1656
sketch1668
cartoona1684
schizzo1686
ébauche1722
scratch1752
croquis1805
galloping sketch1834
pochade1846
abbozzo1849
scribbling1863
thumbnail sketch1900
under-drawing1934
bozzetto1935
pensiero1959
1852 E. E. Hale in Sartain's Mag. Jan. 39 (heading) The old and the new, face to face. A thumb-nail sketch.
1900 D. Woodside Life H. Calderwood ix. 208 Small ink-sketches of the thumb-nail order.
1901 Daily Chron. 3 Jan. 4 in Cassell's Encycl. Dict.: Suppl. Vol. (c1904) (at cited word) The truth of Dickens's vignettes and thumb-nails of humanity.
1909 Westm. Gaz. 4 Jan. 1/3 There are also ‘thumb-nails’ of some French figures, and..little pencil portraits of well-known faces.
1911 R. D. Saunders Col. Todhunter 125 A full-length ‘character-cartoon’ of the Colonel surrounded by ‘thumb-nail’ impressions of his face and bodily pose.
1968 R. Gittings John Keats xi. 148 He wrote a brilliant thumb-nail sketch of Oxford.
3. thumbnail scraper (Archaeology), a kind of microlith made for scraping.
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society > occupation and work > equipment > tool > types of tools generally > prehistoric tool > [noun] > types of
flintstonec1400
celt1748
fairy hammer1815
axe1851
flint-flake1851
stone-axe1864
flake-knife1865
scraper1865
thumb-flint1865
tool-stone1865
saddle quern1867
fabricator1872
grattoir1872
hammer-stone1872
tribrach1873
flake1875
hand-axe1878
pick1888
turtle-back1890
racloir1892
eolith1895
pebble chopper1895
palaeotalith1897
tranchet1899
point1901
pygmy flint1907
microlith1908
Gravette1911
keeled scraper1911
lissoir1911
coup de poing1912
end-scraper1915
burin1916
rostro-carinate1919
tortoise core1919
blade1921
axe-adze1925
petit tranchet1926
tournette1927
pebble tool1931
raclette1932
biface1934
cleaver1935
thumbnail scraper1937
microblade1959
linguate1966
1937 D. A. E. Garrod & D. M. A. Bate Stone Age Mt. Carmel I. i. iii. 31 Thumb-nail scraper..a very well-made minute round scraper.
1977 G. Clark World Prehist. (ed. 3) v. 226 Late Stone Age assemblages including..microliths and thumb-nail scrapers, which in this part of Africa [sc. Nigeria] were usually made of quartz.
Draft additions March 2006
A miniaturized version of a document or part of a document; (Computing) a small version of a digital image, frequently acting as a hyperlink to a larger version.
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1933 R. T. Porte Dict. Printing Terms 101/1 Thumb-nail layout, a sketch layout in miniature.
1964 A. Turnbull Graphics of Communication 176 Thumbnails have three advantages.
1989 InfoWorld 16 Jan. 65/1 There are 10 options for audience handouts and speaker's notes. One of these prints thumbnails of 15 bullet charts on a page.
2002 Bodleian Libr. Rec. XVII. 285 The images will first be presented as thumbnails, with links to medium-size JPEG-compressed image files.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1912; most recently modified version published online September 2021).
thumbnailv.
transitive. To describe concisely by means of a thumbnail sketch. Also intransitive.
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society > communication > writing > [verb (intransitive)] > describe concisely with thumb-nail sketch
thumbnail1932
society > communication > writing > [verb (transitive)] > describe in writing
writeOE
pena1527
pursue1558
thumbnail1932
1932 ‘T. E. Shaw’ Odyssey of Homer f. 4 He thumb-nailed well; and afterwards lost heart—Nausicaa, for instance, enters dramatically and shapes, for a few lines, like a woman—then she fades, unused.
1942 Sphere 15 Aug. 194/4 Among undergraduates he had, of course, a nickname—we called him ‘Blinks’, which adequately thumb-nailed the outer man.
1959 Time 10 Aug. 28/2 Thus did Andrew Berding..thumbnail last week the immobility and futility of the Big Four sessions at Geneva.
1983 Times 13 June 5/5 The presence of Miss Ride—or 5 ft 5 in, 115 lb, blue-eyed, brunette, cool-hand Sally, as the papers thumbnail her—has created additional interest.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1993; most recently modified version published online December 2020).
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n.1604v.1932