Finger. (Anglo-Saxon, finger)
.The ear finger, digitus auriculāris—i.e. the little finger. The four fingers are the index finger, the middle finger, the ring finger, and the ear finger. In French, le doigt auriculaire. The little finger is so called because it can, from its diminutive size, be most easily introduced into the conduit of the ear.
“Le doigt auriculaire est le petit doight, ainsi nommé parce quʹa cause de sa petitesse, il peut facilement être introduit dans le conduit auditif externe.”—Dict. des Sciences, etc.
The medical finger. The ring finger (q.v.).
“At last he put on her medical finger a pretty, handsome gold ring, whereinto was enchased a precious toadstone of Beausse.”—Rabelais: Pantagruel, iii. 17.
The ring finger. The finger between the long and little finger was used by the Romans as a ring-finger, from the belief that a nerve ran through it to the heart. Hence the Greeks and Romans used to call it the medical finger, and used it for stirring mixtures, under the notion that nothing noxious could touch it without its giving instant warning to the heart. It is still a very general notion in England that it is bad to rub on salve or scratch the skin with any but the ring finger. The fact that there was no such intimacy between the finger and the heart was not discovered till after the notion was deeply rooted. Pliny calls this digitus annulāris.
With a wet finger. Easily. (See Wet Finger.)
My little finger told me that. The same as “A little bird told me that,” meaning, I know it, though you did not expect it. The former expression is from Molière’s Malade Imaginaire. (See Bird.)
Cry, baby, cry; put your finger in your eye, etc. This nursery rhyme seems to be referred to by Shakespeare in his Comedy of Errors, ii. 2:—
“No longer will I be fool,
