finger-pointy
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Forms: form: more finger-pointy
form: most finger-pointy
form: finger pointy
form: fingerpointy
Etymology: From finger-point (verb) and finger point (noun) + -y.
Senses: examples: text: “She had gold teeth in front, wore a long braid and spoke in argumentative, finger-pointy Cantonese,” Olivia [Wu] remembers.
ref: 1995, Jim Auchmutey, Susan Puckett, “Ah Tong’s Special Sauce”, in The Ultimate Barbecue Sauce Cookbook, Marietta, Ga.: Longstreet Press, →ISBN, “International Flavors” section, page 107, column 2:
text: Eight Hardcore ditties from Belfast’s Spindrift, with a sort of Biohazard/ S.O.I.A vibe… actually, I know fuck all about Hardcore (preferring devil-signs to finger-pointy theatrics), so I’m not sure how to describe this in relation to other acts of that genre.
ref: 2000 November, Spandex Oo-er [pseudonym], “Demo-nic Invocation”, in Fitted Kitchens of the Living Damned, volume 3, Belfast, page 12, column 2:
text: We pile back into the wagon and head south on I-81 a while more, Mother serving as guide, just as cheerful and finger-pointy as the microphone lady standing at the front of a Tyler rose garden tour bus.
ref: 2003, Nicole Louise Reid, “The Last Bluff”, in In the Breeze of Passing Things, San Francisco, Calif.: MacAdam/Cage, →ISBN, page 180:
text: It was a firetrap waiting to happen, really, so in a way Caroline may have saved Ursula’s life by burning the teeny garment to ashes before the sweater actually spontaneously combusted sometime in the future. Which was what Caroline explained to the approximately forty-five firemen who seemed to appear instantly and were getting all finger-pointy and screamy and stuff, not flirty like they are on TV at all, while they were all scowling and fanning the smoke out of their eyes and stepping from island to island among the lakes of water that the stupid drama-queen sprinklers had flooded the place with.
ref: 2006, Kyle Smith, chapter 5, in A Christmas Caroline, New York, N.Y.: William Morrow, →ISBN, pages 98–99:
text: He smiled – just a little one – in my direction before declaring to the room that we would all touch base at ten for a staff meeting and we would see where we could move on from there to get the Star in NorthStar up and shining again. He finished this with a wink and a weird finger-pointy thing and walked on.
ref: 2010, Claire Allan, chapter 29, in It’s Got to Be Perfect, Dublin: Poolbeg, →ISBN, page 245:
text: The furious exchange that followed, with Barber tottering over to the judges' table all finger-pointy and teary, for a moment looked like it might turn into a pub catfight.
ref: 2011 March 28, Michael Hogan, “Bladerunners: Dancing on Ice's finale”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 01 Oct 2015:
text: “Do. Not. Interrupt. Me. Your position here is terminated. I will not call the police, and I know that’s a great relief to you whatever you want me to think, but only if you admit what you did. I cannot conscience a liar.” My mother was doing the finger-pointy thing that made you want to sock her; I could see Margaret was thinking about it.
ref: 2014, Christopher Buehlman, “Margaret”, in The Lesser Dead, New York, N.Y.: Berkley Books, →ISBN, page 57:
text: I remember shots, I remember some Jarvis Cocker-style finger-pointy dancing to ‘Disco 2000’.
ref: 2015, Jenny Stallard, “Sunday, 30 August”, in Boyfriend by Christmas, London: Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 149:
text: I was sitting in Pizzaland with my friend, showing her a funny finger-pointy trick my father taught me years ago. A waiter thought I was calling him over. I wasn’t.
ref: 2021, Sinéad O’Connor, “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?”, in Rememberings, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, →ISBN, part 1, page 37:
glosses: Of, relating to, or characteristic of pointing a finger or fingers; prone or tending to point a finger or fingers.
examples: text: Telling too much of the truth so as to expose the naked hand of power and its interests, calling things finger-pointy descriptions like male dominance, white supremacy, capitalism (I repeat, where is the U.S. Left? Did all these people really just disappear with the collapse of the Soviet Union?), going too much against the grain, especially against views embraced by the mainstream media—which has taken over much of the function of credentialing the intelligentsia that the academy used to exercise—this is the danger zone.
ref: 2002, Catharine A[lice] MacKinnon, “On Academic Freedom: From Powerlessness to Power”, in Butterfly Politics, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, published 2017, →ISBN, section IV (Academy), page 250:
text: AVOID THE BLAME GAME. Women who get vindictive or finger-pointy when angry are 31 percent more likely to develop heart problems than those who resolve things more constructively, recent research from Columbia University Medical School in New York City found.
ref: 2010 November, Christa Renee, “Healthy You, Guy, Kids: Stay-Well News for You and Everyone You Love”, in Jill Herzig, editor, Redbook, New York, N.Y.: Hearst Communications, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 65, column 1:
text: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's not go and get all finger-pointy. Everyone makes mistakes, right?
ref: 2010 November 24, Sean McIndoe, “Gary Bettman's flowchart for dealing with NHL scandals”, in Down Goes Brown, archived from the original on 27 Nov 2010; published in Sean McIndoe, “The NHL’s Top-secret Flow Chart for Dealing with Scandals”, in The Best of Down Goes Brown […], Mississauga, Ont.: John Wiley & Sons Canada, 2012, →ISBN, page 214:
text: The series was an exhalation after a finger-pointy period about men making life terrible for women, but it was also a bit: "We're just like this sometimes, so shut up."
ref: 2013 March 19, Kate Abbott, quoting Martin Clunes, “How we made Men Behaving Badly”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 04 Mar 2014:
text: ‘YOU HURT ME’: Using the ‘YOU’ language in a fight can feel ‘finger-pointy’ and critical. Instead, consider using ‘I’ language. For example, ‘I felt hurt and sad.’
ref: 2020, Janina Scarlet, “The Magic of Connection”, in Super-Women: Superhero Therapy for Women Battling Depression, Anxiety and Trauma, London: Robinson, →ISBN:
glosses: Characterized by finger-pointing (the making of accusations; the assigning of blame); prone or tending to accuse or assign blame.