Meaning
To show open contempt or defiant disregard for a person, rule, or convention. The phrase transfers the gesture of placing the thumb against the nose and wiggling the fingers into verbal form, and it nearly always implies deliberate, cheeky disrespect rather than quiet indifference. Informal; connotes cheeky, public defiance rather than polite disagreement. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The phrase comes from the derisive gesture of putting the thumb on or beside the nose, spreading the fingers, and wagging them at the person being mocked. The gesture itself is much older than the verbal formula: the British equivalent 'cock a snook' is recorded from 1791 ('They cock snooks at one on every occasion'), and the gesture was familiar across Europe well before that. The Online Etymology Dictionary dates the recorded verb phrase 'to thumb one's nose' as an expression of derision to 1903, and the figurative extension, thumbing one's nose at rules or authority without any gesture being made, grew up alongside it in the early twentieth century. An American nickname for the gesture current at the time was the five-fingered salute.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- nose-thumbing
- thumb one's nose at
- thumbed his nose at
- thumbing your nose at
- thumbs her nose at
Usage Examples
- The developer thumbed his nose at the zoning board and built the fence anyway.
- Parking in the mayor's reserved spot seemed like his way of thumbing his nose at authority.
- Critics say the firm thumbs its nose at safety regulations whenever inspections are not announced.