Trivia question: What is the origin of the thumbs up and down hand sign? And what does it mean?

Question

Be careful how you answer. There is an internet website I got this from and the answer may surprise you.

Bravo on part one! But there is an explanation that goes contrary to your second answer

Sorry I cannot verify my source now. I searched but did not find the source I found in the past which was that a thumbs down meant to sheath the sword and the gladiator may live or the thumbs up meant he did not fight well and for him to die

So because I cannot verify my source it is not fair to as further answers unless you wish. The website I accessed in the past was supposed to be little known trivia that contradicts what we now think.

Thank you for your answers

Answer 1

I am not sure of the origin, unless it was from the Roman Empire. I do know that despite popular belief that the
emperors gave a "thumbs up" and the gladiator would live
and a "thumbs down'' and he would die is wrong.
Historians say that the emperors gave a ''thumbs up" and
the gladiator would die. They called it the turn of the thumb.

Answer 2

Thumbs down is indeed from the gladatorial games and mimed the killing of someone with a sharp weapon. Thumbs up is more complicated. The opposite gesture in Roman times was to fold the thumb inside the fist to mime sheathing the weapon. Thumbs up as we know it is a gesture of pilots about to take off.

Answer 3

Without doing any research since Im at work, I thought it was used in the Coloseum in Rome to signify death to the glaiator with a thumb down and thumb up to live.

Answer 4

the possible answer is ======the romans used the thumbs up to live and the thumbs down to die===only a guess but it sounds good.

Answer 5

Actually i think that there was no up/down. It was the thumb sideways. And a motion acroos the neck. Signalling to cut his head off.

Answer 6

I think it was in the colleseum when the emperor wanted to dictate the outcome of a gladiator contest and who would live or die