Two closed fists showing BOOKWORM tattooed in black traditional-style letters across the knuckles, one letter per finger.

BOOKWORM knuckle lettering

Traditional · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

Two closed fists are shown side by side, with the word BOOKWORM tattooed across the knuckles, one letter on each finger. The bold, blocky letters have dark outlines and grey shading, and the lettering follows the curve of the knuckles. The image is in black and grey against a dark background, with a wooden surface below the hands.

Traditional Lettering Hand Word Letter

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

Keep reading

You will not believe what Hollis did on Tuesday. We had the whole reading room at the bindery bet on the Carlisle prize, he lost, and instead of paying the forty shillings he marched over to Ada's back room above the saddler's and had the word put across his knuckles. BOOKWORM, one letter to each finger, in the heavy black sort the old sailors favour. Mr Pryce says the ink is lamp-black and will never fade, which I doubt, but the man is now a walking advertisement for the Athenaeum's reading list.

The bet was simple enough. Hollis swore he could get through every volume on the third shelf before the spring thaw, and I swore he could not. He read by candle after the presses shut down, turned the pages with a wet thumb, and once fell asleep with Tristram Shandy open on his chest like a bib. By February he had finished the shelf and started on the atlases, and Pryce began calling him the Vicar, which he hated.

So when he came in last Tuesday with his fists wrapped in a rag, I thought he'd broken something. Instead he unwrapped them on the glue table and held them under the lamp, the letters still raw and shining at the edges, and said, "Now you have to lend me the Gibbon." I paid him the forty shillings out of spite. He's already halfway through the second volume. Come up at Easter and watch him turn a page with one hand while the word sits across the other, daring anyone to say he hasn't earned it.