black thumb
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.99 in modern English
25
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
2
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A lack of skill in gardening; brown thumb.
noun
Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see black, thumb.
Example Sentences
- "I think of doctors as having the equivalent of green thumbs or black thumbs in gardening."
- "First of all, call me Sam; second, you should know I have a black thumb when it comes to anything other than cactus."
- "Odds are that if you're reading this book, you've either never gardened before or you've tried, but with no success. In fact, you probably identify as having a 'black thumb'. Maybe you've tried to grow some plants in the past and failed."
- "Before investing in a terrarium or aquarium, however, check your student for "Black Thumb Disease." Nothing is so depressing as to continually keep killing off plants or animals without knowing what's happening to them."
- "In the interest of full disclosure, I am not now and never have been a big fan of keeping reptiles as pets; I have a “black thumb” when it comes to keeping animals alive in captivity."
- "Or that pet turtle the clerk in that exotic pet store had told her was unkillable. Hah. She had a black thumb."
Etymology
By analogy to green thumb.