Unique patterns of ridges on human fingertips used for identification, or marks left by touching surfaces.
Compound of finger plus print, first used in this sense in the late 19th century when Francis Galton systematized fingerprint identification. Print comes from Old French preinte, meaning 'pressed' or 'stamped,' from Latin premere (to press).
Fingerprints represent the ultimate biological signature - no two people, not even identical twins, have the same patterns. The scientific realization that these everyday marks could serve as perfect identifiers revolutionized criminal justice and remains the gold standard for human identification over a century later.
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