brown thumb
1
7.9
- noun
- Informal
:
pulgar marrón
- Unfortunately, I've got a brown thumb.
Examples
-
Got a bit of a brown thumb.
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When it comes to life, I have a brown thumb.
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I have a brown thumb, so I can't keep any plants alive in my house.
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Despite my best efforts, my brown thumb means that no flowers bloom in my garden.
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Everyone says I have a brown thumb because all my houseplants always die.
Antonyms
How Skilled
Surface Forms
Morphology
brown + thumb
The meaning 'lack of skill in gardening' cannot be derived from the literal constituents 'brown' (a colour) and 'thumb' (a digit) — a B1 learner would likely interpret it literally as a discoloured thumb. The intended sense depends on knowing the antonymic or ironic play on the established idiom 'green thumb', so without prior exposure this is not predictable from the parts.
Etymology
Brown thumb plays on the older saying 'green thumb', which means someone good at growing plants. One popular image is a brown thumb that looks like dead, dry leaves, so brown thumb came to mean someone who 'cannot grow plants'.