get one's fingers burnt

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

to suffer a loss or injury from an experience

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

gặp tổn thất hoặc bị thương từ một trải nghiệm

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: to burn one's fingers
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

He got his fingers burnt in the stock market.

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “get one's fingers burnt” mean?

to suffer a loss or injury from an experience Literally: to burn one's fingers

Is “get one's fingers burnt” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.