Pinkie or pinky?
pinkie is a noun meaning “A little finger, the finger furthest on a hand from the thumb”; pinky is an adjective meaning “Pinkish”. Use pinkie as a noun and pinky as an adjective (pinky is also a noun: “Methylated spirits mixed with red wine or Condy's crystals”). They sound the same (/ˈpɪŋki/). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) pinky is about 3.4 times as common as pinkie.
What is the difference between pinkie and pinky?
| pinkie | pinky | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun | adjective, noun |
| Meaning | informalA little finger, the finger furthest on a hand from the thumb informalA little toe, the toe furthest on a foot from the big toe AustraliaA bilby | Pinkish A baby mouse, especially when used as food for a snake, etc AustraliainformalThe Australasian snapper or pink snapper (Chrysophrys auratus) |
| Example | none recorded | none recorded |
| Forms | pinkies | pinkier, pinkiest |
| Pronunciation | /ˈpɪŋki/ | /ˈpɪŋki/ |
| In writing | about once in every 1 million words | 2.5 times per million words |
Sources: pinkie and pinky in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of pinkie and pinky
pinkie
- 1
informalA little finger, the finger furthest on a hand from the thumb
- 2
Alternative form of pinky (“baby mouse”)
- 3
AustraliaA bilby
- 4
informalA little toe, the toe furthest on a foot from the big toe
pinky
- 1
Pinkish
- 2
AustraliaslangMethylated spirits mixed with red wine or Condy's crystals
- 3
AustraliaCanadaScotlandUSinformalThe smallest finger or toe of a hand or foot
- 4
winking
- 5
A baby mouse, especially when used as food for a snake, etc
- 6
offensiveslangA white person
- 7
AustraliainformalThe Australasian snapper or pink snapper (Chrysophrys auratus)
- 8
A kind of fishing schooner of New England
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, pinkie or pinky?
pinkie appears about once in every 1 million words; pinky 2.5 times per million words.
pinkie about once in every 1 million wordspinky 2.5 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search pinkie vs pinky?
“pinkie vs pinky” is searched about 40 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“pinky vs pinkie”, “pinkie or pinky”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.