fingerprint

Etymology

From finger + print.

noun

1. The natural pattern of ridges on the tips of human fingers, unique to each individual.
2. The patterns left on surfaces where uncovered fingertips have touched, especially as used to identify the person who touched the surface.
   Nervously, he wiped the gun of fingerprints real and imaginary with the stocking-covered fingers. 1974, Patricia Highsmith, chapter 7, in Ripley's Game
   The crime scene investigator has the responsibility of collecting latent fingerprints. 2012, Christopher C. Harmon, Criminal Investigation, page 108
3. (computing) Unique identification for public key in asymmetric cryptosystem.
4. A unique combination of features that serves as an identification of something.
   Most pharmacopoeial monographs of medicinal plants include TLC as method for identification based on a chromatographic fingerprint, which consists of a sequence of characteristic substance zones. 2008, Monika Waksmundzka-Hajnos, Joseph Sherma, Teresa Kowalska, Thin Layer Chromatography in Phytochemistry, page 40
   The set of all location fingerprints and coordinates constitutes the location fingerprint database. 2010, Christoph Steiner, Location Fingerprinting for Ultra-wideband Systems, page 9
5. A trace that gives evidence of someone's involvement.
   And continue to ask yourself the question, could the incredible complexity of the human body with its multitudinous specialized functions have come into being completely by chance or is it another fingerprint of God? 1999, Arvin S. Gibson, Fingerprints of God, page 141

verb

1. (transitive) To take somebody's fingerprints.
   The jail staff fingerprints its inmates routinely
   Too often, the union says, farmers feel the police response is inadequate and the sentencing too lenient. It’s a view seemingly shared by one of the latest victims of bee rustling, Norfolk bee keeper Simon Greenwood, who told the Observer that police had taken some photos of the scene, fingerprinted a can and then sent him a letter to say no further action was being taken. September 23, 2017, “From north Wales to Norfolk, distraught beekeepers ask: who’s stealing our hives?”, in The Observer
2. (transitive) To identify something uniquely by a combination of measurements.
   Analytical results from this combination of leach tests are tools that allow the investigator to quantify (fingerprint) which geochemical components could be expected in runoff from these piles if they were leached by a cloudburst... 2004, Philip L. Hageman, Use of Short-Term (5-Minute) and Long-Term (18-Hour) Leaching Tests to Characterize, Fingerprint, and Rank Mine-Waste Material from Historical Mines in the Deer Creek, Snake River, and Clear Creek Watersheds in and around the Montezuma Mining District, Colorado, page 1
   A significant disadvantage of DNA fingerprinting that excludes conventional methods of population genetic analysis is an absence of genetic interpretation of hybridization fragment origin. 2006, Marina May Read, Focus on DNA Fingerprinting Research, page 30