fingerprintn.
/ˈfɪŋɡəprɪnt/, U.S. /ˈfɪŋɡərˌprɪnt/ 1.
a. An impression or mark made on a surface by the tip of a person's finger, esp. one which is dirty or greasy; a finger mark.
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society > communication > indication > marking > a mark > trace or vestige > [noun] > fingerprint
finger marka1661
fingerprint1737
finger impression1856
thumbprint1900
print1914
latent fingerprint1919
lift1951
1737 Dis. Bath 14 I (convinc'd, By the foul Finger-prints, the Glass is rinc'd) Attempt to drink.
1829 C. Rose Four Years S. Afr. vii. 164 The many finger-prints with which my sketch-book was stained.
1859 N. Amer. Rev. 88 492 The chapel of St. Verena, where the finger-prints of the young maiden still remain in the rock.
1918 E. S. Eells Tales of Giants from Brazil v. 78 There were dirty tracks on the floor and dirty finger prints upon the door.
1966 M. LaCour & I. T. Lathrop Photo Technol. iv. 48/2 It should seldom be necessary to clean a lens which has been protected from dust and fingerprints with a lens cap.
2014 West Austral. (Perth) (Nexis) 5 Sept. 9 A bit of washing soda on a washcloth will clean grubby fingerprints off light switches.
b. spec. A mark made on a surface by the tip of a person's finger, as used in criminal investigations to identify individuals from the unique pattern of whorls and lines on the fingertips.
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society > communication > indication > that which identifies or distinguishes > personal identification > [noun] > fingerprint taken for purpose of
finger marka1661
fingerprint1880
thumb-mark1889
dactylogram1913
dabs1926
1880 National Police Gaz. (U.S.) 11 Dec. 10/4 (heading) The finger print. How human ingenuity is taxed to discover the clues to mysterious crimes.
1891 F. Galton in Nineteenth Cent. Aug. 304 Finger-prints have been proposed over and over again as a means of identification.
1929 J. B. Priestley Good Compan. ii. iv. 347 What with photographs and finger-prints and telegraphs and wireless and flying squads!.. Not a dog's chance!
1965 C. Himes Cotton comes to Harlem (1988) xii. 82 Her fingerprints were on the stock and smeared on the trigger but are partly obliterated by a clear set of prints by a man.
2003 C. Birch Turn again Home xxix. 315 You'll laugh on the other side of your face when I call the police and they take your fingerprints!
2.
a. figurative. Something that provides evidence of the presence or activity of a particular person or thing; a distinctive identifying mark or characteristic.
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society > communication > indication > that which identifies or distinguishes > [noun]
tokenc1000
distinctionc1374
differencea1398
signeta1425
knowledge?c1475
smell?a1505
markc1522
badge1529
note1583
impress1590
monument1590
type1595
stamp1600
pressure1604
mintage1612
criterion1613
impressa1628
differencer1633
lineament1638
mole1644
discrimination1646
tessera1647
diagnostic1651
monumental1657
discretive1660
signate1662
footmark1666
trait1752
memorandum1766
fingerprint1792
insignia1796
identifier1807
designative1824
cachet1840
differentiator1854
tanga1867
trademark1869
signature1873
totem1875
differential1883
earmarkings1888
paw print1894
discriminator1943
ident1952
1792 J. Tomes Verses on Plan & Method Sovereign Grace 6 There are the Finger Prints, Of the Almighty being: With sparkling lustre do, Those heavenly bodies shine.
1837 Gentleman's Mag. Aug. 124/1 Leisurely I surveyed these finger-prints of climbing genius.
1884 J. Parker in Christian World 15 May 360/4 The word ‘dogma’..seems to me to bear the finger-prints of the pedant or the priest.
1936 Pop. Mech. Jan. 61/1 Spark streams are the ‘fingerprints’ of steel.
1961 J. Singh Ideas Mod. Cosmol. vii. 96 The measurement..enables us to compute the curvature. In other words, space curvature leaves its fingerprint on the pattern of galactic distribution in depth over the sky.
2014 Onboard Mar. 36/2 That was more as a group effort. This time he wanted to do something that would carry his fingerprints from start to finish.
b. A highly or uniquely characteristic pattern of properties or observations which identifies a particular substance, structure, condition, etc., undergoing scientific analysis; esp. a chromatogram of the fragments produced by partial enzymic digestion of a protein or nucleic acid molecule.In earliest use with reference to spectroscopy (cf. fingerprint region n. at Compounds 2). DNA fingerprint, genetic fingerprint: see the first element.
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the world > matter > physics > atomic nucleus > radioactive isotope > radioactive label > [noun] > chromatogram
radiochromatogram1952
fingerprint1956
1931 Sci. News Let. 25 Apr. 262/2 A spectrum photograph is a sort of finger-print of the light-producing atom or molecule.
1956 V. M. Ingram in Nature 13 Oct. 793/2 It was decided to call the resulting chromatogram the ‘finger print’ of the protein.
1969 Nature 23 Aug. 832/2 Fig. 1 shows a ‘fingerprint’ (peptide chromatogram) of the tryptic peptides of normal myoglobin.
1970 Daily Tel. 27 Feb. 4/8 The technique uses the radioactive ‘fingerprint’ of elements to determine their age and origin or to compare one substance with another.
1970 Nature 21 Mar. 1131/2 Fingerprints of the T1 ribonuclease digestion products of 16S and 23S RNAs are very different, thus indicating dissimilar primary structures.
2003 Ladies' Home Jrnl. Oct. 168/2 Researchers are studying a technique known as proteomics that allows them to analyze hundreds of proteins produced by genes and identify fingerprints that are unique to breast cancer.
Phrases
to leave one's fingerprints all over something: to leave distinct or indisputable evidence of one's involvement in an affair, endeavour, etc. Similarly to have fingerprints all over something, one's fingerprints are all over something, etc. In quot. 1932 more generally: to leave clues that reveal the truth of a story.
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1932 Taylor (Texas) Daily Press 7 Mar. 2/5 [Men]..do, however, leave little fingerprints all over their story, telltale marks by which a clever woman can always identify the parties concerned.
1957 C. Hilton Be my Guest i. 4 The town of Socorro still has family fingerprints all over it.
1977 N.Y. Times 18 Apr. 43/2 Mr. Carey heightened that risk when he left his fingerprints all over the Cuomo candidacy.
1997 K. Calavita et al. Big Money Crime (1999) iv. 126 It is no wonder that the legislation passed so quietly; as we have seen, politicians had left their fingerprints all over the S&L fiasco.
2009 Times 5 Feb. (Times2 section) 14 Lasseter's fingerprints are all over this slick animation that cleverly recycles his best trick.
Compounds
C1. General attributive and objective (in sense 1).
a. In singular, as fingerprint ink, fingerprint pattern, fingerprint scanner, etc.
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1893 Law Jrnl. 11 Nov. 752/2 To consider the means at present available in this country for the identification of habitual criminals, and..whether they could be improved by the adoption either of the Bertillon method of identification in use in France, or of Mr. Galton's finger-print method.
1903 Daily Chron. 9 Feb. 8/7 The finger-print system of identification.
1905 Westm. Gaz. 7 Feb. 8/2 The finger-print expert from Scotland Yard.
1921 Discovery Oct. 259/1 The finger-print archives of the Lyons Police Laboratory.
1928 G. B. Shaw Crude Criminol. in Doctors' Delusions (1932) 246 We were assured that the Bertillon measurements were infallible until the fingerprint method was substituted.
1937 Oxoniensia 2 6 The large vessels..with finger-print decoration on the shoulder.
1970 P. Laurie Scotl. Yard ix. 193 There are two basic finger-print patterns: loops, where the lines turn through two right angles, and triradii.
1988 D. French Working (1991) xi. 355 She offered me a little jar of cream, so I could get the fingerprint ink off my hands.
2012 A. Blum Tubes iv. 141 The fingerprint scanner wasn't recognizing his dirty hands and had locked him in.
b. In plural, as fingerprints expert, fingerprints database, etc.
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1905 Manch. Guardian 3 May 12/5 (heading) Finger-prints evidence.
1931 Syracuse (N.Y.) Herald 30 July 3/6 (heading) Fingerprints expert on scene; many witnesses questioned.
1940 Dunkirk (N.Y.) Evening Observer 15 May 1/5 The police department's fingerprints division revealed Haderer had been arrested on a petit larceny charge 19 years ago.
1980 Globe & Mail (Toronto) (Nexis) 28 Oct. Extensive tests by police fingerprints experts failed to find any fingerprints at all on the lawn edger.
2013 F. Verbruggen in H.-J. Albrecht & A. Klip Crime, Criminal Law & Criminal Justice in Europe 478 His [sc. John Edgar Hoover] FBI created a most efficient fingerprints database.
C2.
fingerprint recognition n. the action or process of verifying the identity of a person by comparing his or her fingerprints with previously recorded samples, spec. (in later use) by means of a computerized system in which the person presses a finger against a sensor that scans a fingerprint; a facility for this.Rare before late 20th cent.
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1908 Minutes of Evidence Departmental Comm. Law relating to Inebriates 32/2 in Parl. Papers (Cd. 4439) XII. 861 Would it be possible to have finger print recognition, because Ellen Smith brought up in one court to-day may be Mary Jones in another court to-morrow?
1968 Information Display Jan. 27/1 The concept of entropy is certainly not limited to character generation. Character and finger print recognition are two applications.
2015 D. Spivey Home Automation for Dummies vii. 125 Use your smartphone's security features, such as a passcode or fingerprint recognition, to protect your phone and your home in case your smartphone is lost or stolen.
fingerprint region n. Chemistry (in infrared spectroscopy) a region of the spectrum in the range of wavelengths approx. 1500–500 cm−1, in which a complex pattern of absorptions are found that are unique to the compound being analysed.
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1950 Science 26 May 579/1 The absorption of chloroform in the fingerprint region was so great, however, that positive identification from this region could not be made.
1987 K. A. Rubinson Chem. Anal. xx. 815 The fingerprint region contains peaks that arise from complicated normal modes involving bending motions.
2006 J. M. Hornback Org. Chem. (Internat. Student ed.) xiii. 513 The absorption due to the CN bond stretch is very difficult to use because it occurs in the fingerprint region with only weak to moderate intensity.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2016; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
fingerprintv.
/ˈfɪŋɡəprɪnt/, U.S. /ˈfɪŋɡərˌprɪnt/ 1. transitive. To take a record of the fingerprints of (a person); to examine (an object) for fingerprints.
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society > communication > indication > that which identifies or distinguishes > personal identification > [verb (transitive)] > take fingerprints of
fingerprint1900
print1939
1900 19th Cent. July 125 The most promising [candidates]..are then measured and finger-printed.
1937 Corsicana (Texas) Daily Sun 13 May 10/3 Captain A. N. Owens..took the bloodstained ax to Houston where it was fingerprinted.
1981 N.Y. Mag. 19 Jan. 23/1 The suspects were photographed and fingerprinted.
2012 R. Fitzpatrick & J. Land Betrayal xvii. 137 Still a little drunk and hostile, they fought my attempt to photograph and fingerprint them.
2. transitive. To identify precisely (a substance or other subject of study) by scientific analysis, esp. using spectroscopic or chromatographic techniques.
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1931 Industr. & Engin. Chem. 23 1232/2 Even for closely related compounds, the spectra differ so sharply that it is generally quite easy to ‘finger print’ and identify any of the several hundred compounds that have already been studied.
1955 Wall St. Jrnl. 1 Nov. 9/3 These methods of ‘finger printing’ chemical compounds often are considered better evidence of the existence of large molecules like those of natural rubber than physical evaluations.
1998 Times 25 June 26/6 The tephra has been fingerprinted chemically, and the eruption that produced it dated firmly to around 600 years ago.
2003 Sunflower Dec. 4/2 Molecular markers are essentially a tremendously accurate means of ‘fingerprinting’ germplasm, enabling Hu and his research staff to follow or track genetic traits in the course of natural sunflower breeding efforts.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2016; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1737
v.1900