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Glite Dictionary
🧸 A finger puppet 🗝️ A torture tool
thumbkin

thumbkin

9.5
A small puppet made on a thumb used in children's songs and games
  • noun
  • /ˈθʌm.kɪn/
  • Baby Talk
translation icon : títere de pulgar
  • Each child made their own thumbkin to use in the classroom puppet show.

Examples

  • In the game, thumbkin appears first before the other finger characters.

  • Look at my thumbkin dance!

  • The children laughed as the teacher introduced thumbkin during the nursery rhyme.

  • The children love their thumbkins during story time.

  • Children love to play with their thumbkin puppets during story time.

  • In the nursery rhyme, the thumbkin character helps to teach kids about numbers.

  • She made a thumbkin for each of her fingers to perform for the kids.

Surface Forms

thumbkin singular
thumbkins plural

Morphology

thumbkin = thumb (transparent) = thumb + kin

Clearly formed from 'thumb' + the diminutive suffix '-kin', indicating a small or personified thumb (e.g., a puppet).

Etymology

Thumbkin comes from thumb and the small ending -kin, which means 'small', so it literally means a 'little thumb' and is easy to remember as the tiny puppet you put on your thumb.