Dictionary

finger to the wind en · NOUN

Meanings

1. (countable, idiomatic, uncountable) An attention to or focus on or awareness of current or prevailing trends, public opinion, or shifting circumstances.
   • At the height of the great oil boom, in the frenzied summer of 1981 when everybody said oil prices could go nowhere but up, the crafty old Texas wildcatter put his finger to the wind and decided it was not going to last much longer. 1986 January 26, ROBERT REINHOLD, “ADOBE'S SEER: B. J. PEVEHOUSE; DIGGING IN AS OIL PRICES SLIDE”, in NY Times:
   • How they choose: They hold up a finger to the winds of recent awards results 2015 February 20, Stephanie Merry, “When it comes to Oscar predictions, whom can you trust?”, in Washington Post:
   • I do not want to hold our fingers to the wind. I want to see us make solid, substantial decisions based on facts, not based on anecdote, if you will. 1982, United States, Congress, House, Committee on Science and Technology, Subcommittee on Science, Research, and Technology, Federal Commitment to Human Nutrition Research, Joint Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Science, Research, and Technology of the Committee on Science and Technology and the Subcommittee on Department Operations, Research, and Foreign Agriculture of the Committee on Agriculture, U.S. House of Representatives, Ninety-seventh Congress, Second Session, June 23, 1982, page 3:
   • A crafty man-of-the-world keeps his finger to the wind.
   • The DPJ, in this view, had pursued a similar path: riding to power on the back of telegenic politicians and with a finger-to-the-wind fidelity to public opinion polls, the party had allowed, in effect, the mass media to dictate outcomes 2011, David Leheny, “Four Cultures of Japanese Politics”, in Victoria Bestor, Theodore C. Bestor, Akiko Yamagata, editors, Routledge Handbook of Japanese Culture and Society:
   • This is a reform that the ancien regime, always with a finger to the wind of public opinion, spotted as an electoral nightmare and ducked. 2017 May 25, “The Tory manifesto doesn't add up – and school breakfasts prove it”, in The Guardian:

Forms

Relateds

which way the wind is blowing

Synonyms

finger in the air