Meaning
To make no effort at all to help, or to do nothing whatsoever towards a task. Used almost exclusively in negative frames such as 'never lift a finger', 'didn't lift a finger' or 'without lifting a finger'. Strongly critical of laziness, indifference or deliberate abstention. Strongly critical in connotation, accusing someone of laziness or willful refusal to help. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms dates the fixed negative idiom to the mid-1900s, but the collocation is older: full-text searches of digitized archives turn up uses in Victorian print, for instance Charles Kingsley's novel Alton Locke (1850). It behaves as a negative polarity item, rarely appearing in affirmative statements. Wiktionary points to a scriptural antecedent, Matthew 23:4 in the King James Version, where burdens are laid on others that the loaders 'themselves will not move them with one of their fingers'; that verse supplies the imagery of minimal effort, though it is not itself a use of the modern phrase.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- didn't lift a finger
- never lift a finger
- not raise a finger
- without lifting a finger
Usage Examples
- He watched us carry the furniture upstairs and did not lift a finger to help.
- Don't expect the agency to lift a finger once the deposit has cleared.
- She never lifted a finger in the kitchen, yet complained about every meal.