finger post
Americannoun
noun
"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012Etymology
Origin of finger post
First recorded in 1775–85
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
With her usual light, graceful step, and with her usual gay and brilliant smile, Zara left Sir Edward Digby's side, and crossing over to her uncle, rested both her hands upon his arm, while he stood as erect and stiff as a finger post, gazing down upon her with a look of sour fun, But in Zara's eyes, beautiful and beaming as they were, there was a look of deeper feeling than they usually displayed when jesting, as was her wont, with Mr. Croyland.
From Project Gutenberg
Oh, oh! then 'twas on this plan that you parted with me on the road, standing like a finger post, "you walk up that way, and I must walk down this."
From Project Gutenberg
This loose and unsatisfactory kind of reference is quite common with Mr. Macaulay; and one might almost as well indicate the route to the pyramids, by setting up a finger post in Edinburgh, pointing in the direction of Cairo.
From Project Gutenberg
And how he caught a hold of the tail of his coat and dragged him from Owen Roe’s Cross to Cuchulain’s Boreen while the soldiers of England’s king were scouring the highways looking for some one to hang to the nearest finger post.
From Project Gutenberg
That boy, my good sir, would break his neck with pleasure, and deprive his parents of their chief comfort—and between ourselves, when you come to see him at hare and hounds, taking the fence and ditch by the finger post, and sliding down the face of the little quarry, you’ll never forget it.
From Project Gutenberg
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.