sticky-finger

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

Having a tendency to steal or take things that do not belong to one

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

thường hay đánh cắp hoặc lấy những thứ không thuộc về một người

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: fingers that stick
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

The store owner accused the sticky-finger employee of theft

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 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “sticky-finger” mean?

Having a tendency to steal or take things that do not belong to one Literally: fingers that stick

Is “sticky-finger” formal or informal?

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