What does "thumbstick" mean?

A small joystick, generally part of a larger game controller, that can be operated with the thumb.

What is a synonym for "thumbstick"?

Common synonyms include: analog stick, analog stick.

Thumbstick

//ˈθʌmˌstɪk// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
A small joystick, generally part of a larger game controller, that can be operated with the thumb.
"Occasionally, when playing any given PC port, you’ll experience disorienting frame drops when using a mouse to control a camera that clearly was designed to move only as fluidly as console thumbsticks would allow."

Synonyms

All synonyms

analog stick analog stick

Example

More examples

"Occasionally, when playing any given PC port, you’ll experience disorienting frame drops when using a mouse to control a camera that clearly was designed to move only as fluidly as console thumbsticks would allow."

Etymology

From thumb + stick.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.