Definitions for the word "nail" from multiple English dictionaries.
1. n.
the horny scale of plate of epidermis at the end of the fingers and toes of man and many apes.
Source: The 1913 Webster Unabridged Dictionary, 1913
2. n.
The basal thickened portion of the anterior wings of certain hemiptera.
Source: The 1913 Webster Unabridged Dictionary, 1913
3. n.
The terminal horny plate on the beak of ducks, and other allied birds.
Source: The 1913 Webster Unabridged Dictionary, 1913
4. n.
A slender, pointed piece of metal, usually with a head, used for fastening pieces of wood or other material together, by being driven into or through them.
Source: The 1913 Webster Unabridged Dictionary, 1913
5. a.
A measure of length, being two inches and a quarter, or the sixteenth of a yard.
Source: The 1913 Webster Unabridged Dictionary, 1913
6. n.
To fasten with a nail or nails; to close up or secure by means of nails; as, to nail boards to the beams.
Source: The 1913 Webster Unabridged Dictionary, 1913
7. n.
To stud or boss with nails, or as with nails.
Source: The 1913 Webster Unabridged Dictionary, 1913
8. n.
To fasten, as with a nail; to bind or hold, as to a bargain or to acquiescence in an argument or assertion; hence, to catch; to trap.
Source: The 1913 Webster Unabridged Dictionary, 1913
9. n.
To spike, as a cannon.
Source: The 1913 Webster Unabridged Dictionary, 1913
10. n.
1 small metal spike hammered in to join things together or as a peg or decoration. 2 horny covering on the upper surface of the tip of the human finger or toe. v. 1 fasten with a nail or nails. 2 secure or get hold of (a person or thing). 3 keep (attention etc.) Fixed. 4 expose or discover (a lie or liar). nail down 1 bind (a person) to a promise etc. 2 define precisely. 3 fasten (a thing) with nails. Nail in a person''s coffin something thought to increase the risk of death. On the nail (esp. Of payment) without delay. [old english]
Source: Oxford English Dictionary, 1884
11. slang
to steal, or capture; “paid on the NAIL,” _i.e._, paid ready
money; NAILED, taken up, or caught,—probably in allusion to the
practice of NAILING bad money to the counter. We say, “as dead as a
door-NAIL;” most possibly because of “apt alliteration.” Shakspeare has
the expression in _Henry IV._—
“_Falstaff._ What! is the old king dead?
_Pistol._ As NAIL in door.”
Dickens, in that marvellous little book, _A Christmas Carol_, says:—
“Old Marley was as dead as a DOOR-NAIL.
“Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know of my own knowledge what
there is particularly dead about a DOOR-NAIL. I might have been
inclined myself to regard a COFFIN-NAIL as the deadest piece of
ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the
simile: and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the
country’s done for. You will, therefore, permit me to repeat,
emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a DOOR-NAIL.”
Source: The Slang Dictionary, 1864
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