sticky fingers

noun

"sticky-fingers" is a 13-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“sticky fingers” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
14
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - An inclination to steal.

Corpus desk

Index EN-sticky-fingers · sticky fingers · English

sticky fingers · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 14 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "S" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for sticky fingers
PropertyValue
Headwordsticky fingers
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters14
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “sticky fingers” in English

sticky fingerssits beyond the 100,000 most-frequent English words, in the long tail of technical, archaic, or otherwise rare vocabulary where spelling doubt tends to strike hardest.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

sticky fingers is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

sticky fingers has no tracked misspelling variants, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct English form is sticky fingers, spelled S-T-I-C-K-Y- -F-I-N-G-E-R-S.

Definition

  1. 1
    An inclination to steal.
  2. 2
    Petty thieves.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how sticky fingers appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. You'd better lock up your belongings before handing your keys to a valet; some of them have sticky fingers.
  2. ‘She was great,’ Bennie said. ‘I was crazy about her. But it turned out she had sticky fingers.’ He glanced at Alex. ‘She stole things.’

This word in other languages

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "sticky fingers"?
"sticky fingers" is spelled S-T-I-C-K-Y- -F-I-N-G-E-R-S.
What does "sticky fingers" mean?
As a noun, "sticky fingers" means: An inclination to steal.
What language does "sticky fingers" come from?
"sticky fingers" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list