Library / English Dictionary

FINGERPRINT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A smudge made by a (dirty) finger

Synonyms:

fingermark; fingerprint

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("fingerprint" is a kind of...):

blot; daub; slur; smear; smirch; smudge; spot (a blemish made by dirt)

Derivation:

fingerprint (take an impression of a person's fingerprints)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A print made by an impression of the ridges in the skin of a finger; often used for biometric identification in criminal investigations

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("fingerprint" is a kind of...):

biometric authentication; biometric identification; identity verification (the automatic identification of living individuals by using their physiological and behavioral characteristics)

mark; print (a visible indication made on a surface)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "fingerprint"):

loop (the basic pattern of the human fingerprint)

thumbprint (fingerprint made by the thumb (especially by the pad of the thumb))

Derivation:

fingerprint (take an impression of a person's fingerprints)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A generic term for any identifying characteristic

Example:

that tax bill had the senator's fingerprints all over it

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("fingerprint" is a kind of...):

identification (evidence of identity; something that identifies a person or thing)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Take an impression of a person's fingerprints

Classified under:

Verbs of sewing, baking, painting, performing

Hypernyms (to "fingerprint" is one way to...):

reproduce (make a copy or equivalent of)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sentence example:

They want to fingerprint the prisoners

Derivation:

fingerprint (a smudge made by a (dirty) finger)

fingerprint (a print made by an impression of the ridges in the skin of a finger; often used for biometric identification in criminal investigations)

fingerprinting (the procedure of taking inked impressions of a person's fingerprints for the purpose of identification)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Scientists have designed an ultra-miniaturised device that could image single cells without the need for a microscope or make chemical fingerprint analysis possible from within a smartphone camera.

(Nanowires replace Newton’s famous glass prism, University of Cambridge)

They found the unique chemical fingerprints located in the warm, dense inner regions of the cocoon of dust and gas surrounding young stars in their earliest stages of evolution.

(ALMA Finds Ingredient of Life Around Infant Sun-like Stars, ESO)

Sousa-Silva and her colleagues are assembling a database of fingerprints for molecules that could be potential biosignatures.

(Poisonous Earthly Molecule May Be Sign of Extraterrestrial Life, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

The multilocus band patterns, known as DNA fingerprints, are evaluated for similarities with DNA from an individual.

(DNA Fingerprinting, NCI Thesaurus)

Every person has a distinct pattern of functional brain connectivity known as a connectotype, or brain fingerprint.

(Brain Activity Is Inherited, May Inform Treatment for ADHD, Autism, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Now, NASA researchers have identified the chemical fingerprint of acrylonitrile in Titan data collected by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile.

(NASA Finds Moon of Saturn Has Chemical That Could Form ‘Membranes’, NASA)

New observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), however, have uncovered the surprisingly clear chemical fingerprints of the complex organic molecules methanol, dimethyl ether, and methyl formate.

(Stellar Embryos in Nearby Dwarf Galaxy Contain Surprisingly Complex Organic Molecules, National Radio Astronomy Observatory)

They have also developed software that automatically detects the “fingerprint” of each of these areas in an individual’s brain scans.

(Connectome map more than doubles human cortex’s known regions, NIH)

This revealed a fingerprint of the chemicals in the atmosphere - a feat possible due to a spectrometer on the Keck 2 telescope called the Near-Infrared Cryogenic Echelle Spectrograph (NIRSPEC).

(Water Found in Planet 120 Light Years Away, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Tree rings are as distinctive as fingerprints: the width, density and anatomy of each annual ring contains information about what the climate was like during that particular year.

(Amount of carbon stored in forests reduced as climate warms, University of Cambridge)