play with vs thumb

play with

verb
  • To fiddle with; make small adjustments to, for example to something mechanical in order to improve its performance. 

  • To trick. 

  • To sexually stimulate a person or a person's erogenous zone. 

  • Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: play with. 

thumb

verb
  • To manipulate (an object) with the thumb; especially, to pull back the hammer or open the cylinder of a revolver. 

  • To turn the pages of (a book) in order to read it cursorily. 

  • To hitchhike 

  • To touch or cover with the thumb. 

  • To soil or wear with the thumb or the fingers; to soil, or wear out, by frequent handling. 

  • To fire (a single action revolver) quickly by pulling the hammer while keeping the trigger depressed. 

noun
  • A thumbnail picture. 

  • The short thick digit of the hand that for humans has the most mobility and can be made to oppose (moved to touch) all of the other fingers. 

  • The part of a slider that may be moved linearly along the slider. 

How often have the words play with and thumb occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )