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nail

Pronunciation: /neɪl/

Translate nail | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish
Definition of nail

noun

  • 1a small metal spike with a broadened flat head, driven into wood to join things together or to serve as a hook: don’t try and hammer nails into the ceiling joists a masonry nail
  • 2a horny covering on the upper surface of the tip of the finger and toe in humans and other primates: she began to bite her nails [as modifier]:a pair of nail clippers
  • an animal’s claw: the clicking of a dog’s nails on a wooden floor
  • a hard growth on the upper mandible of some soft-billed birds.
  • 3a medieval measure of length for cloth, equal to 2 1/ 4 inches.
  • 4a medieval measure of wool, beef, or other commodity, roughly equal to 7 or 8 pounds.

verb

[with object]
  • 1 [with adverbial of place] fasten with a nail or nails:the strips are simply nailed to the roof
  • 2 informal detect or catch (someone, especially a suspected criminal):have you nailed the killer?
  • expose (a lie or other deception): he spoke out to nail the lie that he’d had a row with his manager
  • 3 informal (of a player) strike (a ball) forcefully and successfully:she was stretched to the limit and failed to nail the smash
  • Baseball (of a fielder) put (a runner) out by throwing to a base: he muffed a perfect throw home that should have nailed Slo-Joe by yards
  • chiefly North American (of a player) defeat or outwit (an opponent):Navratilova tried to nail her on the backhand side
  • (of a player) secure (a victory) conclusively: I fancy the Scots to nail a win
  • 4 vulgar slang, chiefly US (of a man) have sexual intercourse with.

Phrases

fight tooth and nail

see tooth.

(as) hard as nails

(of a person) very tough or callous: I can fight for whatever I want and I’m hard as nails

nail one's colours to the mast

see mast1.

a nail in the coffin of

an action or event regarded as likely to have a detrimental or devastating effect on (a situation or person):this was going to put the final nail in the coffin of his career

on the nail (North American also on the barrelhead)

informal (of payment) without delay: not paying on the nail could be extremely expensive

Phrasal Verbs

nail someone down

elicit a firm commitment from someone:I can’t nail her down to a specific date

nail something down

  • 1identify something precisely:something seems unexpected—I can’t nail it down, but it makes me uneasy
  • 2secure an agreement:the company has finally nailed down the agreement with its distributors

Derivatives

nailed

adjective
[in combination]:dirty-nailed fingers

nailless

adjective

Origin:

Old English nægel (noun), næglan (verb), of Germanic origin; related to Dutch nagel and German Nagel, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin unguis and Greek onux

nail in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of nail in the US English dictionary

Nearby words

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