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Definition: Fingerprint from Black's Medical Dictionary, 43rd Edition

The unique pattern of fine ridges in the outer horny layer of the skin at the front of the tip of each finger and thumb. The ridges are of three types: loops (70 per cent), whorls (25 per cent) and arches (5 per cent). Fingerprint patterns are used as a routine forensic test by police forces to identify individuals. Some patterns can indicate that the subject has an inherited disorder.


fingerprint

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
an impression of the underside of the end of a finger or thumb, used for identification because the arrangement of ridges in any fingerprint is thought to be unique and permanent with each person (no two persons having the same prints have ever been found). Palm prints and footprints are also used, especially for identification of infants. Traditionally, impressions have been taken from a person using ink and paper, but in live-scan fingerprinting electronic images produced by a video scanner are converted by computer into binary codes, which can be more readily compared. As an identification device, fingerprinting dates from antiquity, but modern systems began essentially with the work of Henry Faulds, William James Herschel, and Sir Francis Galton in the late 19th cent. Fingerprints gained acceptance as a more objective form of identification than visual recognition. The Galton method, elaborated by E. R. Henry, is still used in Great Britain and the United States. Juan Vucetich in…
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Full text Article FINGERPRINTS

From Dictionary of Policing
A fingerprint is an impression of the friction ridges of all or any part of the finger. Fingerprints may be recovered from crime scenes where they have been deposited in natural secretions from friction ridge skin. They are then compared with inked impressions taken of the fingers and thumbs of…
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Full text Article fingerprint

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
an impression of the underside of the end of a finger or thumb, used for identification because the arrangement of ridges in any fingerprint is thought to be unique and permanent with each person (no two persons having the same prints have ever been found). Palm prints and footprints are also used, …
| 524 words
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Full text Article fingerprint

From A/V A to Z: An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Media, Entertainment and Other Audiovisual Terms
A characteristic pattern that identifies a particular piece of digital content. The digital content is analyzed using a special algorithm that generates a statistically unique numeric identifier (the fingerprint). The likelihood that two different pieces of digital content would result in the same…
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Full text Article fingerprint

From Collins Dictionary of Law
an impression taken of the indents present on the finger tips. These have been used in the detection of crime since before the Fingerprint Bureau at Scotland Yard was established in 1901, relying on the hypothesis that no two people have the same fingerprint. The first conviction was secured in…
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Full text Article DNA fingerprinting

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
or DNA profiling, any of several similar techniques for analyzing and comparing DNA from separate sources, used especially in law enforcement to identify suspects from hair, blood, semen, or other biological materials found at the scene of a violent crime. It depends on the fact that no two people, …
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Full text Article genetic fingerprinting

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Technique developed in the UK by Professor Alec Jeffreys (1950– ), and now allowed as a means of legal identification. It determines the pattern of certain parts of the genetic material DNA that is unique to each individual. Like conventional fingerprinting, it can accurately distinguish humans from…
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Full text Article fingerprinting

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
Act of taking an impression of a person’s fingerprint. Because each person’s fingerprints are unique, fingerprinting is used as a method of identification, especially in police investigations. The standard method of fingerprint classification was developed by Sir Francis Galton and Sir Edward Henry; …
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Full text Article fingerprint

From The American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language
a. A mark left on a surface by a person's fingertip. b. An image of the ridges on a person's fingertip made by putting ink on the fingertip and pressing it against a surface or by using a digital scanning device. A distinctive or identifying mark or characteristic: “We can, from his retelling [of…
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Full text Article fingerprint

From Merriam-Webster's Collegiate(R) Dictionary
fingerprint
pronunciation (1859) 1 :  the impression of a fingertip on any surface; also :  an ink impression of the lines upon the fingertip taken for the purpose of identification 2 : something that identifies: as a :  a trait, trace, or characteristic revealing origin or responsibility b :  analytical…
| 106 words , 1 image
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Viewers who watch police investigation shows on television often see intrepid experts solve crimes with the aid of a fingerprint on a doorknob or a strand of DNA from a hair miles from the crime scene. While the ease with which criminals are identified is exaggerated, the general picture is correct: …
| 2,792 words
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