Thumb
The backhoe's scoop may have a metal bar called a "thumb" hinged to the scoop: see images in Excavator#Excavator attachments. It grips against the scoop like a human thumb to pick up objects. Some types can lie back against the backhoe arm when not needed.
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Famous quotes containing the word thumb:
“I had a consuming ambition to possess a miller’s thumb. I believe I have never since wanted anything more desperately than I wanted my right thumb to be flattened as my father’s had become, during his earlier years of a miller’s life.”
—Jane Addams (1860–1935)
“Your small hands, precisely equal to my own—
only the thumb is larger, longer—in these hands
I could trust the world, or in many hands like these,
handling power-tools or steering-wheel
or touching a human face ...”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Give a lift to a tomato, you expect her to be nice, don’t ya? After all, what kind of dames thumb rides, Sunday school teachers?”
—Martin Goldsmith, and Edgar G. Ulmer. Charles Haskell, Jr. (Edmund MacDonald)