Brewer's: Fingers

The old names for the fingers are—

Thumb (Anglo-Saxon thuma).

Towcher (the finger that touches), foreman, or pointer. This was called by the Anglo-Saxons the scite-finger, i.e. the shooting finger.

Long-man or long finger.

Lech-man or ring-finger. The former means “medical finger,” and the latter is a Roman expression, “digitus annularis.” Called by the Anglo-Saxons the gold-finger.

Little-man or little finger. Called by the Anglo-Saxons the eár-finger.

Fingers. Ben Jonson says -

The thumb, in chiromancy, we give to Venus: The fore-finger to Jove; the midst to Saturn; The ring to Sol, the least to Mercury

Alchemist, i. 2.

This Vulcan was a smith, they tell us, That first invented tongs and bellows; For breath and fingers did their works (We'd fingers long before we'd forks).

King: Art of Love.

Costard: Go to; thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers' ends, as they say. Holofernes: O, I smell false Latin: dunghill for unguem.

—Shakespeare: Love's Labour's Lost, v. l.

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