▪ I. ˈfinger-post, n.
A post set up at the parting of roads, with one or more arms, often terminating in the shape of a finger, to indicate the directions of the several roads; a guide-post.
| 1789 Mrs. Piozzi Journ. France II. 291 The words Route de Belgrade upon a finger-post. 1857 Toulm. Smith Parish 357 The Highway Surveyors ought to put up finger posts..where they are likely to help travellers. |
| transf. and fig. 1793 Beddoes Math. Evid. 158 It had pleased him to christen the pronouns, the finger-posts of language. 1857 Stanley Mem. Canterb. i. 31 So many finger-posts, pointing your thoughts, along various roads, to times and countries far away. |
b. slang. (See quot.)
| 1785 Grose Dict. Vulg. Tongue, Finger post, a parson, so called, because like the finger post, he points out a way he..probably will never go, i.e. the way to heaven. |
Hence ˈfinger-posted ppl. a., having a finger-post; in quot. fig. ˈfinger-postless a., without a finger-post.
| 1885 H. O. Forbes Nat. Wand. E. Archip. 88 Flowers..with..a beautifully painted and finger-posted labellum. 1873 R. Broughton Nancy III. 147 A labyrinth of cross⁓roads, fingerpostless, guideless. |
▪ II. finger-post, v.
[f. the n.]
trans. To indicate by means of a finger-post. Also fig.
| 1908 Councils' Jrnl. 17 The Parish Council of Orrell-with-Ford..is properly proud of having ‘name-plated all the roads, finger-posted all the footpaths,’ [etc.]. 1926 T. E. Lawrence Seven Pillars (1935) 7 The contents seem to me to be adequately finger-posted by this synopsis. 1944 Ess. & Stud. XXIX. 52 In the drama the playwright may be ‘explicit’ in finger-posting parts of plot, situation, or character. |