put the finger on
IdiomsExample Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"It is hard to put the finger on," he replied to an opening question, like a mechanic mystified by a misfiring car engine.
From BBC • Nov. 6, 2022
On removing this some weeks later, he discovered he had put the finger on the wrong way round.
From The Guardian • Jul. 11, 2019
“Don’t put the finger on me, because that’s what you’re doing.”
From New York Times • Jan. 21, 2018
“At any moment he is going to put the finger on you,” she wrote.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 18, 2016
Indeed, in his own earlier poems there are not wanting Byronic touches and echoes, not so easy to separate and put the finger on, as to see and hear “confusedly.”
From Matthew Arnold by Saintsbury, George
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.
