Fingerling
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A juvenile fish that has developed scales and working fins.
- 2 a young or small fish wordnet
- 3 A type of small potato grown primarily in North America.
- 4 An infant weasel, stoat, ferret; esp. weasels.
- 5 Any finger-sized version of something typically larger. broadly
"Oh, but those little crab-lingered fingerlings really wanted to get in! Now some were trying to claw up through an old knothole whose bole had aged and didn’t sit true in the plank. […] But here came the dwarf opening her door, and the spiderlets melted away."
Example
More examples"Oh, but those little crab-lingered fingerlings really wanted to get in! Now some were trying to claw up through an old knothole whose bole had aged and didn’t sit true in the plank. […] But here came the dwarf opening her door, and the spiderlets melted away."
Etymology
From Middle English fyngyrlynge, equivalent to finger + -ling, from having the size of a human finger.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.