hop-o'-my-thumb
(ˈhɒpəmɪˌθʌm)
Also 6 hopthumb, 9 hop-me-thumb.
[In 16th c., hop on my thombe, from hop v.1 (in imperative mood), applied to a person so small that he may be hyperbolically told to hop on one's thumb: cf. stick-in-the-mud, pick-me-up.]
A dwarf, a pygmy: the name of a pygmy hero of nursery lore. Cf. Tom Thumb.
| 1530 Palsgr. 232/1 Hoppe upon my thombe, fretillon. 1546 J. Heywood Prov. (1867) 25 It is a small hop on my thombe. And Christ wot, It is wood at a woorde. 1583 Stanyhurst æneis iv. (Arb.) 106 A cockney dandiprat hop⁓thumb. 1594 Taming of Shrew (N.), Plaine friend hop of my thum, know you who we are? 1681 Otway Soldier's Fort. iv. i, You little Hopo'-my-thumb, come hither. 1827 Hone Every-day Bk. II. 67 He was a hop-o'-my-thumb no higher than the window-locker. 1855 Thackeray Newcomes II. 255 This hop-o-my-thumb of a creature has begun to give herself airs since her marriage and her carriage. |
| attrib. 1748 Smollett Rod. Rand. (1812) I. 59 You pitiful hop o' my thumb coxcomb. 1819 Sporting Mag. IV. 272, I cannot..help laughing at such hop-me-thumb fellows. 1889 Pall Mall G. 25 June 1/2 Austria is a mere Hop-o'-my-Thumb Power excepting so far as she is backed by Germany. |