Meaning of black thumb | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A lack of skill in gardening; brown thumb.
2. An inability to make animals or plants in one's care thrive.
   broadly
3. A person with a black thumb.
4. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see black, thumb.

Examples

“I think of doctors as having the equivalent of green thumbs or black thumbs in gardening.”

“First of all, call me Sam; second, you should know I have a black thumb when it comes to anything other than cactus.”

“Odds are that if you're reading this book, you've either never gardened before or you've tried, but with no success. In fact, you probably identify as having a 'black thumb'. Maybe you've tried to grow some plants in the past and failed.”

“Before investing in a terrarium or aquarium, however, check your student for "Black Thumb Disease." Nothing is so depressing as to continually keep killing off plants or animals without knowing what's happening to them.”

“In the interest of full disclosure, I am not now and never have been a big fan of keeping reptiles as pets; I have a “black thumb” when it comes to keeping animals alive in captivity.”

“Or that pet turtle the clerk in that exotic pet store had told her was unkillable. Hah. She had a black thumb.”

“"Why?" She smiled. "Especially on family occasions like this, he feels he's been something of a black thumb in the Garden of Life."”

“The original Black Thumb, she was. This ability to wither, it seemed to her, had begun to extend itself into her work, for the Majorov research had come to what, seemingly, was a dead end.”

““Anyway," she said, taking a deep breath and swiping a palm across her cheeks to remove the lingering moisture, "at the end of the day, I destroyed it. What's the opposite of green thumb? Black thumb? That's me.””

CEFR level