fingerprint n.

"terminal or digital member of the hand" (in a restricted sense not including the thumb), Old English finger, fingor "finger," from Proto-Germanic *fingraz (source also of Old Saxon fingar, Old Frisian finger, Old Norse fingr, Dutch vinger, German Finger, Gothic figgrs "finger"), with no cognates outside Germanic; perhaps ultimately from PIE root *penkwe- "five."

As a unit of measure for liquor and gunshot (late Old English) it represents the breadth of a finger, about three-quarters of an inch. They generally are numbered from the thumb outward, and named index finger, fool's finger, leech- or physic-finger, and ear-finger.

c. 1300, prente, "impression, mark made by impression upon a surface" (as by a stamp or seal), from Old French preinte "impression," noun use of fem. past participle of preindre "to press, crush," altered from prembre, from Latin premere "to press, hold fast, cover, crowd, compress" (from PIE root *per- (4) "to strike"). The Old French word also was borrowed into Middle Dutch (prente, Dutch prent) and other Germanic languages.

Sense of "a printed publication" (later especially a newspaper) is from 1560s. The meaning "printed lettering" is from 1620s; print-hand "print-like handwriting" is from 1650s. The sense of "picture or design from a block or plate" is attested from 1660s. Meaning "piece of printed cloth or fabric" is from 1756. The photographic sense is by 1853.

In Middle English, stigmata were called precious prentes of crist; to perceiven the print of sight was "to feel (someone's) gaze." Out of print "no longer to be had from the publisher" is from 1670s (to be in print "in printed form" is recorded from late 15c.). Print journalism attested from 1962, as distinguished from the television variety.