thumbnail

American  

[thuhm-neyl] / ˈθʌmˌneɪl /

noun

thumbnails plural

1. the nail of the thumb.

2. anything quite small or brief, as a small drawing or short essay.

3. Printing. a small, rough dummy.

4. Also called porkchop.  Journalism, Printing. a half-column portrait in a newspaper.

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adjective

1. quite small or brief; concise.

   a thumbnail description of Corsica.

verb (used with object)

1. to make a thumbnail sketch or description of.

thumbnail British  

/ ˈθʌmˌneɪl /

noun

1. the nail of the thumb

2. (modifier) concise and brief

   a thumbnail sketch

3. computing a small image which can be expanded

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• thumbnails
  plural

Etymology

Origin of thumbnail

First recorded in 1595–1605; thumb + nail

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

thumbnail thumbnails

The devices created in Lozano's lab are about the size of a thumbnail.

From Science Daily ● Jun. 10, 2026

Gensler’s daughter created the show’s thumbnail art; his son-in-law built its website.

From Barron's ● Apr. 18, 2026

On X, Kurt Caz dismissed criticism of the thumbnail as "clickbait" and said "if you're going to do a hit piece on me do it properly".

From BBC ● Feb. 21, 2026

For each featured book, there’s a thumbnail portrait of its author, an image of the cover and one or two other intriguing visuals.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 21, 2025

The heart of a shrew can fit on your thumbnail.

From "A Heart in a Body in the World" by Deb Caletti

“With YouTube, a medium with a screen, you have thumbnails, other options competing for your attention and encouraging you to click away,” Martin said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 17, 2025

On some occasions, these “faceless” creators have openly boasted about their monetization strategies and how they use A.I. tools to generate thumbnails and titles and even automate their entire workflow.

From Slate ● Mar. 14, 2025

“There are certain things you can do with thumbnails to just get clicks, which we’re not interested in,” says Floris Bauer, co-founder and president of Gunpowder & Sky.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 11, 2023

We used geolocation tools and checked individual thumbnails from the video to see when it was first posted.

From BBC ● Feb. 6, 2023

“Gonna start working on my comic zine,” he said, holding up a page on which he’d sketched thumbnails of an eight-page comic.

From "The First Rule of Punk" by Celia C. Pérez