NAIL • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Nail

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/neɪl/ Listen

Nail

noun

1.

Horny plate covering and protecting part of the dorsal surface of the digits.

2.

A thin pointed piece of metal that is hammered into materials as a fastener.

3.

A former unit of length for cloth equal to 1/16 of a yard.

verb

(past & past part. nailed; pres. part. nailing)

1.

Attach something somewhere by means of nails.

2.

Take into custody. Synonyms: apprehend, arrest, collar, cop, nab, pick up.

3.

Hit hard. Synonyms: blast, boom, smash.

4.

Succeed in obtaining a position. Synonyms: nail down, peg.

5.

Succeed at easily. Synonyms: ace, breeze through, pass with flying colors, sail through, sweep through. "You will pass with flying colors" , "She nailed her astrophysics course"

6.

Locate exactly. Synonym: pinpoint. "The chemists could not nail the identity of the chromosome"

7.

Complete a pass. Synonym: complete.

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Etymology of 'Nail'

Related searches:

nail-tailed kangaroo

nail-tailed wallaby

eightpenny nail

WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University

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"Nail" Quotes from Famous Books

... one of her offspring. The hunter then killed one of the cubs, and the other two escaped. When bears are together and one is wounded by a bullet, but does not see the real assailant, it often falls tooth and nail upon its comrade, apparently attributing its injury ...

— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt

... measure the glass of the lamp. Do not go up any higher than is necessary, but if you have to stretch be careful not to mark off the measurement with your nail, although the impulse is a natural one. That ...

— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah

... as he suggested, unchained the woman, and she took a spear and went to meet the giant. The latter was angered, and he swallowed her, tooth and nail. This frightened the rest all ...

— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various

... Epistle; for it is with regard to this very matter of taking unjust suffering patiently and without resistance that the apostle says that Jesus has 'left us an example.' There are limits to such silent endurance of wrong, for Paul defended himself tooth and nail before priests and kings; but Christ's followers are strongest by meek patience, and descend when they take a leaf out of their ...

— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... legislate for labour. I am prepared to legislate in such a way that the prosperity of the manufacturer, all the manufacturers in this country, must be shared by the workpeople. I am prepared to fight, tooth and nail, against twenty per cent dividends on capital and twenty-five shillings a week wages for the operative. There are others in the Cabinet of my point of view. In a couple of years we must go to the country. I am going to the country ...

— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

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