What Does "Thumbs Down" Mean?

I am noticing that besides some of the threads are 'thumbs up' and 'thumbs down'. What does that mean?

It means you are "not cool" with the subject matter of the post/thread material you posted.

Basically, Disapproval.

It means you are "not cool" with the subject matter of the post/thread material you posted.

Basically, Disapproval.

As if I posted a subject that I, personally dislike? Thanks...

thumbs up = ok

thumbs down = blag

comes from romans at least now they don't open the lion cages at us

As if I posted a subject that I, personally dislike? Thanks...

Exactly - for example, if you posted a link to a news article that talked about across-the-board pay cuts for nurses, that would be good 'thumbs down' situation.

Exactly - for example, if you posted a link to a news article that talked about across-the-board pay cuts for nurses, that would be good 'thumbs down' situation.

Actually, that may be a middle finger up, or half of a peace sign, but I'm sure I'd be inappropriate .

Thanks, now I truly comprehend!

Actually, that may be a middle finger up, or half of a peace sign, but I'm sure I'd be inappropriate .

Thanks, now I truly comprehend!

LOL! Precisely!

Thumbs down= Stab your spear into the sand and spare your fellow gladiator.

Thumbs up=

(Pollice Verso - Jean-Leon Gerome)

"...to-day they hold shows of their own, and win applause by slaying whomsoever the mob with a turn of the thumb bids them slay..."

Although rendered as "the thumb turned down," the phrase infesto pollice actually translates as "with hostile thumb." It is the same expression used in the Anthologia Latina, a collection of poems made in the early sixth-century AD, where the gesture is identified with the death of the gladiator: "Even in the fierce arena the conquered gladiator has hope, although the crowd threatens with its hostile thumb" (415.27-28).

But if the gesture is hostile in Quintilian, it is just the opposite in Pliny, who relates that "There is even a proverb that bids us turn down our thumbs to show approval" (Natural History, XXVIII.25). Here, the phrase pollices premere, which is translated as "turn down our thumbs," signifies approval. It also can be understood to mean "to press down with the thumbs" (i.e., the thumb pressing down upon the closed fist) or, conversely, "to press the thumbs with something" (i.e., pressing with the fingers of the fist so that the thumb is folded within the hand).

There is no clear textual evidence for the position of the thumb, and the Latin does not admit to precise understanding. Horace, for example, speaks of sport being commended "with both thumbs" (Epistles, I.18.66) but the gesture is uncertain. Martial does say that the crowd appealed for mercy by waving their handkerchiefs (XII) or by shouting (Spectacles, X). And both Juvenal, cited above, and the Christian poet Prudentius relate that spectators demanded the deathblow by "turning the thumb." In Juvenal, the phrase is verso pollice; in Prudentius, who rails against the carnage in the arena, converso pollice.