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Have you ever noticed when you are under water for a long time, your finger tips turn white and their skin is not as smooth as before and they change. But after a while they go back to their previous shape. I wanna know how to refer to that shape of skin. Hope I'm clear enough.

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  • 1
    AS kids, we called them chicken fingers (which now has a whole new meaning).
    – bib
    Nov 17, 2013 at 23:05
  • Grandma hands..
    – Hot Licks
    Apr 4, 2015 at 22:24
  • I have no idea what the scientific name for it is but my dad says my fingers go 'geshrimfeld' whenever that happens.
    – user256250
    Sep 8, 2017 at 17:17
  • Aquadigeous leaching.
    – Greg Lee
    Sep 8, 2017 at 17:37

2 Answers 2

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Most people would call that sort of thing wrinkled or maybe pruned, perhaps even corrugated if they were particularly prone to long words.

Wikipedia writes:

The wrinkles that occur in skin after prolonged exposure to water are sometimes referred to as pruney fingers or water aging. This is a temporary skin condition where the skin on the palms of the hand or feet becomes wrinkly. This wrinkling response may have imparted an evolutionary benefit by providing improved traction in wet conditions, and a better grasp of wet objects.

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    In addition to pruned fingers (as tchrist says) and pruney fingers (as Wikipedia says), another common variant is simply prune fingers. Nov 17, 2013 at 14:04
  • 1
    I'm not sure I would want pruned fingers! "Turned into the likeness of a prune" is not the first meaning of pruned which occurred to me.
    – Andrew Leach
    Nov 17, 2013 at 14:36
  • 2
    Would pruned in that case necessarily mean "having the likeness of a prune" would could it be understood as "cut down" or "shortened", in the way you prune a tree?
    – None
    Nov 17, 2013 at 15:26
  • 3
    I have never heard corrugated myself and probably would never use it. Unlike wrinkled and pruned, I don't think it's a common idiom.
    – Kevin
    Nov 17, 2013 at 19:52
  • Feet turn pruney too (livescience.com) Nov 17, 2013 at 20:20
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It's called (water immersion) wrinkling.

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  • I spent a few minutes looking for the standard dermatological description and, surprisingly, it appears to be "water immersion wrinkling." as Ilmari Karonen rightly suggests. Usually, you can count on the dermatologists for nice, long latinized description. A related term, "paddy-field foot," describes changes in the foot when it has been immersed in warm water for a couple of days or so. Nov 17, 2013 at 16:49

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