Fingergate

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proper noun

A 2015 controversy around a video, later found to be doctored, allegedly showing Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis making an obscene hand gesture to punctuate his comments about the financial relationship of Greece and Germany during a lecture in Croatia in 2013.

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Meanings

proper noun
  1. informalA 2015 controversy around a video, later found to be doctored, allegedly showing Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis making an obscene hand gesture to punctuate his comments about the financial relationship of Greece and Germany during a lecture in Croatia in 2013.

    Asked to comment on this latest turn in the unfolding “Fingergate” scandal, which has focused populist rage in Germany over the Greek debt on Greece’s new finance minister, Mr. Varoufakis told Reuters TV in Athens on Thursday that he had been vindicated.

    2015 March 20, Robert Mackey, “Greco-German ‘Fingergate’ Gets Curiouser and Curiouser”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

Origin

From finger + -gate.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

Fingergate. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Fingergate

MLA

“Fingergate.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Fingergate. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Fingergate,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Fingergate.

Source: Fingergate on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.