0 a very careful search of a place, usually by police officers or experts, to try to find evidence relating to a crime:
Forensic experts made a fingertip search of acres of woodland.
Police in Blackburn carried out fingertip searches of two houses and a college that the man had attended.
Three men were arrested at the address and officers conducted a fingertip search of the premises.
A body was found in a shallow grave at Norwood Edge, near Harrogate, sparking off a fingertip search of the area.
Police sealed off much of the common in a fingertip search for the knife.