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Nail   /neɪl/   Listen
Nail

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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"Nail" Quotes from Famous Books



... Unless ground off with a bevel on both sides it cannot be controlled to cut accurately. A light hatchet is preferable to a heavy one. It should never be used for nailing purposes, except in emergencies. The pole of the hammer—that part which is generally used to strike the nail with—is required in order to properly balance the hatchet ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe

... Renaud, and Havelock, who had arrived in the town just as they were starting, promised to follow in a day or two, as soon as he could get ready a larger force. Eager soldier though he was, he had long ago laid to heart the truth of the old saying, 'for want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; for want of a horse the man was lost; for want of a man the kingdom was lost,' and he always took care that his nails were in their places. Therefore he waited a few days longer than he expected to do, and spent the time in enlisting ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... dat blow nowhar,—dat ar a fact," said Sam, sententiously, giving an additional hoist to his pantaloons, and adroitly substituting a long nail in place of a missing suspender-button, with which effort of mechanical ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... story he had excluded all but himself and the groom. He and the groom had taken the horse out of the stable, it being the animal's nature to eat his corn better after slight exercise, and while doing so a nail had been picked up. ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... conducting on to a balcony, and his eyes roamed over the endless sea of herbage to the far-away whiteness of Rome, above which rose the dome of St. Peter's, at that distance a mere sparkling speck, barely as large as the nail of ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... substance:—The cross is commonly used in China, and consists of any flat boards of sufficient size, the upright shaft being usually eight to ten feet high. The transverse bar is fixed by a single nail or rivet, and is therefore often loose, and may be made sometimes to traverse a complete circle. It is not so much an instrument of punishment in itself, as it is an operation-board whereon to confine the criminal, not with nails, but ropes, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 233, April 15, 1854 • Various

... here for a moment," he says, calmly, not lifting his eyes from the fourth finger of his left hand, upon the nail of which ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... born with conservative or aggressive tendencies: they belong naturally with the idol-worshippers or the idol-breakers. Some wear their fathers' old clothes, and some will have a new suit. One class of men must have their faith hammered in like a nail, by authority; another class must have it worked in like a screw, by argument. Members of one of these classes often find themselves fixed by circumstances in the other. The late Orestes A. Brownson used to preach at one time to a little handful of persons, in a small upper room, ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... red, "she is. She gave me a rag when I cut me knee, and one day she lifted the cup down for me when Mary Deane stuck it up on a high nail, so that none of us could get drinks, and when Sister Rose said, 'Who is talking?' she said Alanna Costello wasn't 'cause she's sitting here as quiet as ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris

... thumb-nail, then he looked up suddenly. "'Melia," he said, with an outburst of desperate frankness, "'Melia is crying 'er ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... him to abandon it, and no attempts have since been made to resume the working. When the silver is not found in solid masses, which requires to be cut with the chisel, it is generally finely sprinkled through the lode, and often serves to nail together the particles of stone through which it is disseminated."[81]—"The ores of the Pastiano mine, near the Carmen, were so rich that the lode was worked by bars, with a point at one end and a chisel at the other, for cutting out the ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... entrance and a careful advance through the hall, I threw open the door beyond the gilded pillars, it was to see the tall figure of this old man mounted upon the chair I had left there, peering up at the nail from which I had so lately lifted the picture. He started as I presented myself and almost fell from the chair. But the careless laugh I uttered assured him of the little importance I placed upon this evidence of his daring and unappeasable curiosity, and he confronted me with an enviable ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green

... from her father's hand and followed him out of the gate, giving him each nail as he wanted it, making suggestions and praising his work as one might do with a child. It was soon finished to the old man's satisfaction, and by that time his excitement and his troubled thoughts were gone, and he was ready for his ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson

... then, I propounded the problem of accounting for Margarita's birth-month having been Roger's, and even within the same week. Pressed for the year of her birth, I made her twenty-two, at which the old man scowled and muttered and traced with his cracked yellow nail devious courses through his great map of the heavens. To tease him I enumerated a few of her qualities and habits, all to be thoroughly accounted for in my estimation, by her strange environment and bringing ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell

... suggested the doctor. "A couple of them up in the maintop, or even in the cross-trees, could shake props, 'odd or even,' and play other games of chance, without being seen. I don't think you have hit the nail on the head yet, ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic

... that the man was stone-deaf, beyond the reach of trumpet? What is the peculiar character in a deaf man's physiognomy?—can any person define it satisfactorily in words?—not in pages; and Mr. Cruikshank has expressed it on a piece of paper not so big as the tenth part of your thumb-nail. The horses of John Gilpin are much more of the equestrian order; and as here the artist has only his favorite suburban buildings to draw, not a word is to be said against his design. The inn and old buildings are charmingly ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the teeth with the finger nail and noticing the odor you can convince yourself of the presence of decomposing organic matter not healthful to be carried into the stomach. By applying a little iodine and then washing it off with water, your teeth may show stains. These ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... replied he, 'who, at this critical crisis, does not avow the sentiments of a constitutionalist, is a nail in the King's ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 6 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... et. There's the key of Kit's House yonder on the nail. Ef you likes to look over the place, one of us will follow you presently, and then, supposin' et to be to your likin', us ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... large nail vehemently into the floor immediately under the refractory bookcase, and then, tying a string round the bottom shelf, he hitched the other end round the nail and drew the fabric triumphantly into the wall. It was a complete ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed

... could discover The sign of the sloth on you, From the last mane-lock laid over To the last nail tight in the shoe; A blast, and your ranks stood ready; A shout, and your saddles filled; A wave, and your troop was ready To wheel where the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 9, 1917 • Various

... these old eyes. Even the followers of the Excellent One are at feud on feud with one another. It is all illusion. Ay, maya, illusion. But I have another desire'—the seamed yellow face drew within three inches of the Curator, and the long forefinger-nail tapped on the table. 'Your scholars, by these books, have followed the Blessed Feet in all their wanderings; but there are things which they have not sought out. I know nothing—nothing do I know—but ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... France's yoke, And Austria bent, and Prussia broke, 155 And the firm Russian's purpose brave, Was barter'd by a timorous slave, Even then dishonour's peace he spurn'd, The sullied olive-branch return'd, Stood for his country's glory fast, 160 And nail'd her colours to the mast! Heaven, to reward his firmness, gave A portion in this honour'd grave, And ne'er held marble in its trust Of two such ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott

... Captain," he said, "you may proceed. If leave you now just a word, though. Look out for that raider. She's around here some place. If you sight her, fire your guns, and if I'm within hearing I'll come up. Work your wireless, too. I'm here to nail that fellow." ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake

... the store-roof popped and crackled now and then as a sheet of "galvanized," expanding, strained on a nail and buckled. And yet from further down the township road there came the whirr and shriek of Smart's buzz-saw rending its way through hard-wood logs; the clang and jangle of Cullen's hammers as they fell on iron and anvil; and more sleepily, ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott

... Strabo (XVII, 1, Sec. 46), and traces of it seem to have been found in Greece among the Locrians (Vurtheim, De Aiacis origine, Leyden, 1907). Every Algerian traveler knows how the girls of the Ouled-Nail earn their dowry in the ksours and the cities, before they go back to their tribes to marry, and Doutte (Notes sur l'Islam maghrebien, les Marabouts, Extr. Rev. hist. des relig., XL-XLI, Paris, 1900), has connected these usages with the old Semitic prostitution, ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont

... massa; mus look. Why dis berry curous sarcumstance, pon my word—dare's a great big nail in de skull, what fastens ob it ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... was upon the floor, and high screened doors opened on to the north verandah. Zu Pfeiffer sprawled in a swing chair before the office desk placed at an oblique angle to the wall, encumbered with books and papers. After tapping reflectively on a book cover with a polished nail zu Pfeiffer's hand sharply struck the bell. Instantly a corporal appeared at the farther door and stood as if petrified, black hand to black temple. Zu Pfeiffer snapped instructions in Kiswahili without removing his cigar. The man grunted, shot his ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... the wonder, and got to be in that condition of mind when a man does not know what to think of any particular event. The bee-hunter, quick-witted, and managing for his life, was not slow to perceive the advantage he had gained, and he proceeded at once to clinch the nail he had so skilfully driven. Turning from Cloud to the head-chief of the party, a warrior whom he had no difficulty in recognizing, after having so long watched his movements in the earlier part of the night, he pushed the same subject ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... which she had dropped and resumed the task of attaching a picture fastener to the wall; but as she passed the mirror above the fireplace she raised her disengaged hand and pulled a curl into place. She banged a little brass nail so hard that it bounced out of the plaster and fell upon the floor. Paul and Don were at the door and the bell was ringing. Flamby achieved composure, and hammer in hand she ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... purulent infection at the end of a finger or toe in the area surrounding the nail. Also ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... "instruments of cruelty" were "in their habitations[604].") O no! It was because she beheld in the slumbering captain at once the enemy of her own afflicted race,—and of GOD'S oppressed people,—and above all of GOD Himself. That was why "she put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workman's hammer!" ... The fight, you are requested to remember, had been a tremendous fight; and the battle, as she thought, was yet raging. Reuben, and Dan, and Asher had kept aloof from the encounter;—the first, in his ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... many things, and say a great many things, and think a great many things, that I ought not; but when I think of the sins that I don't commit,—the many times when I feel cross enough to "bite a ten-penny nail in two," and only bite my lips,—the sacrifices I make for other people, and don't mention it, and they themselves never know it,—the quiet cheerfulness I maintain when the fire goes out, or unexpected guests arrive and there is no bread in the house, ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... I were not right, as we stood in front of the hall-fire before the rest of the party had assembled for dinner, and he told me that I had indeed hit the nail on the head in this instance, though for his own part he never laid much stress himself on such an occurrence, having found it prove misleading in the extreme to draw any conclusion from it. He further informed me that Miss Derrick was the young lady with dark hair who had poured ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... the disordered path of retreat; she seemed to be racing against that letter on its way to Joan. She would write later to the man who was drawing near. Only one thing did Patricia pause to do: It was like driving the last nail in the old life. She telegraphed to Chicago, accepting ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock

... the ash forming upon the ignited end of his cigar, performing the operation with nicety, using the extreme tip of his middle-finger nail over the salver attached for the purpose to the ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... represents a model which is a little more complicated, but which gives remarkable results. The largest nail is here two inches in length, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various

... for quite other appellations are sounding in my ears, each one of which, to the number of some hundred, signifies at least twenty yards in width, to say nothing of the length. For my part, I have already, notwithstanding the approach of winter, put up a big nail in the garret, on which to hang my bands and surplice. Listen, then, to the conclusion of your father. Give all possible care to your affairs in Munich, put them in perfect order, leave nothing to be done, and leave nothing behind EXCEPT ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... connections are effected with a cement made by melting Burgundy pitch with three or four per cent of gutta percha. It is indispensable that the cement when cold should be so hard as completely to resist taking any impression from the finger nail, otherwise it is certain to yield gradually and finally to give rise to leaks. The connecting tubes are selected so as to fit as closely as possible, and after being put into position are heated to the proper amount, when the edges are touched with a fragment of cold ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various

... origin of these rules and customs seems to have been the dread of sorcery. A personal name was held to be a part of its owner; and, just as the possession of a lock of another's hair, or even a paring of his nail, was believed to confer power over him, so was the knowledge of his name. Similarly men in the lower culture have a great fear of having their likenesses taken; and everybody is familiar with the belief that a witch, who has made a waxen ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland

... jointed upon one another like the several parts of the human fingers. The digits can be spread out for walking purposes, or bent around so as to clasp an object. The outer bone of each digit almost always bears a nail or claw, which is sometimes very strong and hooked, as is the case with the birds of prey, while in other species it is only slightly curved and is not meant as a weapon of offense or defense, but chiefly to enable the bird to ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser

... are proud of heavy heads of hair, they do not look with equal favor on face and body hairs. These are plucked out either by grasping them between a knife blade and the thumb nail, or with a bamboo device known as iming. This consists of a section of bamboo split into several strips at one end. A hair is placed in one end of the slits, and the bamboo is bent into a half circle, causing it to take a firm hold, ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole

... a tiny pink rose, no larger than the nail of my little finger. Stalk and leaves were there, and golden pollen lay in its delicate heart. Each fairy-petal blushed with June fire; the frail leaves were exquisitely green. Withal it was as hard and unbendable ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer

... to nail this down. My future, yours, and that of your people depend upon how carefully we work. You wouldn't want to let us all down by ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone

... as if with red fire. Many a time before had Talbot watched the moon rise, but never under stranger circumstances. Now the night was illuminated with mellow glory. "Hit the nail on the head," he whispered. "Do you see that spot over there? To the left, yes. Can ...
— The Seed of the Toc-Toc Birds • Francis Flagg

... of holding which owes its existence to the act of 1802 may be illustrated by the history of the Worcestershire small holdings. The inception of the scheme was due to the decline of the nail-making business, which caused a number of the inhabitants to be without occupation. Two candidates for election to the county council looking out for a popular cry found it in the demand for land. They promised to do their best in this direction, and thanks to the energetic action ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... a will! With a will! With a will and surely! Without fail, Drive each nail, Build ...
— Bees in Amber - A Little Book Of Thoughtful Verse • John Oxenham

... NERVE SHOCK: Another common cause of stammering is fright or nervous shock, which may have been brought about in countless ways. One boy who came to me some time ago stated that he had swallowed a nail when about six years of age and that this was the cause of his stammering. The logical conclusion in a case like this would be that the nail had injured the vocal organs, but an examination proved that ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue

... rough road, with painful and unwilling labour. We must take up our cross and bear it if we would walk in the Spirit. If we suffer it to drag behind us, it will only hinder instead of helping us. Each sorrow, each loss, or bereavement, is as a nail to fasten us closer to our cross. Let us stretch out our hands willingly to receive the nail, sharp though it be. Remember we must be crucified with Jesus if we are to be glorified with Him. Again, walking ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton

... departed love, whose presence forbade oblivion of their loveliness; and a thin and scattered population would wander through the world as through the valley of the shadow of death! How often have I been interrupted when about to nail down a coffin, by the agonized entreaties of some wretch to whom the discoloured clay bore yet the trace of beauty, and the darkened lid seemed only closed in slumber! How often have I said, 'Surely that heart will break with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 540, Saturday, March 31, 1832 • Various

... well aware that the Little Doctor had not returned from Denson's, where she had been summoned to attend one of the children, who had run a rusty nail into her foot. She had gone alone, for Dr. Cecil was learning to make bread, and had refused to budge from the kitchen till her first ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower

... rose. I moved on, and I smothered and drowned in wet, till I came to a little house, and there was a welcome before me. Many quarts of water I squeezed from my skirt and my cape. I hung my hat on a nail, and I lying in a sweet flowery bed. But I was up again in a little while. We began sports and pleasures; and it was with pride we ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others

... her pearls. The Dutchman stood by looking on; he smiled down at her; his white teeth flashed; the hair on his lip was like two twisted flames. He was big and fat, and joyous, and without fear. Matara tipped fresh priming from the hollow of his palm, scraped the flint with his thumb-nail, and gave the gun to me. To me! I took it . ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad

... hearth, and proceeded to shut the cottage door, which had been left open as they entered,—and locking it, dropped an iron bar across it for the night. Then she threw off her cloak, and hung it up on a nail in the wall, and bending over a lamp which was burning low on the table, turned up its wick a little higher. Helmsley watched her in a kind of stupefied wonderment. As the lamplight flashed up on her features, ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... when she went out. Grace came flying back to the front, and drew the bolt softly. But as she did so she heard a hammering, and found the door was fast. Unluckily, Hope's tool-basket was on the window-ledge, and Monckton drove a heavy nail obliquely through the bottom of the door, and it was immovable. Then Mary slipped with cat-like step to the window, and had her hand on the sill to vault clean out into the road; she was perfectly capable, it being one of her calisthenic ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... be attached to the saw mill, for the purpose of convenience of families and others settling at the mines. The water power of the American Fork is equal to any upon this continent, and in a few years large iron founderies, rolling, splitting and nail mills will be erected. ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont

... the parchment can be crumbled between the fingers, and the bean within is too hard to be dented by finger nail or teeth. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... surrender themselves gaily to all the diversions of the town, know what sort of usage the child in the village is receiving, fastened in his swaddling band? At the least interruption that comes, they hang him up by a nail like a bundle of rags, and there the poor creature remains thus crucified, while the nurse goes about her affairs. Every child found in this position had a face of purple; as the violent compression of the ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... Master Jack Dillard gits de 'state," she proceeded, as though she had not heard my eager question, "wy, den Sabra Smif am as dead as a door-nail from dis time to de day ob judgment, an' de ole man'll have to git anoder 'fectionate companion. I'se mity sorry for de poor ole soul, but I a'n't gwine to put myself in Jack Dillard's claws, not ef I knows myself. He's one ob dem young wite ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... and keen sense of pleasure in their possession; for though worthless, they were man's handiwork, the only real evidence I had come upon of that vanished people who had been before us; and it was as if those bits of baked clay, with a pattern incised on them by a man's finger-nail, had in them some magical property which enabled me to realize the past, and to see that vacant plain repeopled with ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson

... you would very much oblige me, as all my publishers pay me in gold. Besides, my worthy Tobiasserl, we stand in need of money, and it is by no means the same thing whether we have money or not. If you get a sight of Holz make sure of him, and nail him at once. The passion of love has so violently assailed him that he has almost taken fire, and some one jestingly wrote that Holz was a son ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace

... more plain and clear, Thou ill wouldst aught design against that steed, For, while I an avenging sabre rear, This I prohibit thee, and, should it need, And every better means of battle fail, With thee for this would battle, tooth and nail." ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... toward it. The prospector had rolled the cloth round a ten-pound piece of fresh venison to keep the flies from it. Shady sprang and seized it, swinging clear of the ground, all four feet braced against the logs, then fell sprawling as the nail from which it was suspended bent and allowed the cord to slip. She started off across the open, and the first fold of canvas flapped loosely under her feet and tripped her. Halfway to the timber the meat dropped out and she ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts

... Vaca we had stripped the shoes off the horses, filling the nail-holes with clay, so that their tracks would be taken for those of wild mustangs. Such were the precautions of men who knew that their lives might be the ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid

... him. Then, in sheer desperation, Hal closed in and fought tooth and nail, as if his ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield

... big fellow in his football suit,' said Jim. 'The biggest part of him is hanging up in there on a nail.' ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards

... He did not dare look back, to see if her gaze was following him, but he thought: 'Chance or no chance, I'm going to fight for her tooth and nail.' ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... nail), also found in the kitchen spice box, and owning certain medicinal resources of a cordial sort, which are quickly available, belong to the Myrtle family of plants, and are the unexpanded flower buds of an aromatic tree (Caryophyllus), cultivated at Penang and elsewhere. ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... us a friendly shelter and such unlooked-for convenience for our purposes, can only be estimated by those who have experienced them; and it is only to strangers to such feelings that it will appear ridiculous to say that even the nail to which our thermometer had been suspended was the subject of ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... long after refusing me. She married Richmond, the stone mason, who was my Methodist Sunday-school teacher in the earliest days, and he had one distinction which I envied him: at some time or other he had hit his thumb with his hammer and the result was a thumb nail which remained permanently twisted and distorted and curved and pointed, like a parrot's beak. I should not consider it an ornament now, I suppose, but it had a fascination for me then, and a vast value, because ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain

... an idle moment," said Barnstable, laughing, as he glanced his eye to the cannon, above which were painted the several quaint names of "boxer," "plumper," "grinder," "scatterer," "exterminator" and nail-driver." ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... Thou hast hit the nail upon the head, These bumpkins must not have a new made food For laughter at our misadventure here, Hence it were wise to send this fellow off As if he in the path of duty treads. Nor must we breathe but that his quick return Will fill ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)

... he said at last to the impatient children. 'Folk in housen, as the People of the Hills say, grow careless about Cold Iron. They'll nail the Horseshoe over the front door, and forget to put it over the back. Then, some time or other, the People of the Hills slip in, find the cradle-babe ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling

... women Shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be, Blessed shall she be above women in the tent! He asked water, and she gave him milk; She brought forth butter in a lordly dish. She put her hand to the nail, And her right hand to the workmen's hammer; And with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, When she had pierced and stricken through his temples. At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: At her feet he bowed, he fell: Where he bowed, there he fell down ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous

... is not one nail in a nipa-thatch house. Perched high in the air on poles, as it is, you perhaps would think our typhoons would blow it over, ...
— Fil and Filippa - Story of Child Life in the Philippines • John Stuart Thomson

... city without having found that girl; but I am not sure that the quickest way to set things right would not be to go down, arrest these men and bring them back here, clear myself, and then go tooth and nail ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... set Wasp at him. It was very short work. She had him by the throat, pulled him and his organ down with a heavy crash, the organ giving a ludicrous sort of cry of musical pain. Wasp thinking this was from some creature within, possibly a whittret, left the ruffian, and set to work tooth and nail on the box. Its master slunk off, and with mingled fury and thankfulness watched her disembowelling his only means of an honest living. The woman good-naturedly took her off, and signed to the miscreant ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... together at the western end of the village, was lighted by the cheery blaze of dry logs in its fireplace. There were guns on a rack over the fireplace under a buck's head; a powder horn hanging near them on its string looped over a nail. There were wolf and deer and bear pelts on the floor. The skins of foxes, raccoons and wildcats adorned the log walls. Jack Kelso was a blond, smooth faced, good-looking, merry-hearted Scot, about forty years ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller

... shoulders. "They are English," he replied. "Swine, sow or sucking-pig—what is the difference? They learn their lessons slowly, these English. We will drive yet another nail into their wooden heads.... You will drive it, Ludwig," he added thoughtfully: and then, as an afterthought, "for the ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... been often repeated, which refers the motives of Pizarro's conduct, in some degree at least, to personal resentment. The Inca had requested one of the Spanish soldiers to write the name of God on his nail. This the monarch showed to several of his guards successively, and, as they read it, and each pronounced the same word, the sagacious mind of the barbarian was delighted with what seemed to him little ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... Nail to the mast her holy flag; Set every threadbare sail; And give her to the God of Storms, ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara

... on for a couple of hours, when Ebenezer threw down his pick, seated himself with his back against a pillar of coal, one of those left to support the roof, and took from his trousers pocket a steel tobacco-box, a black short pipe, and a nail. ...
— Son Philip • George Manville Fenn

... nor be abash'd, or fear The cutting thumb-nail, or the brow severe; But by the Muses swear, all here is good, If but well read, or ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick

... when they made their maps in the winter with the Mandans. But they did mention that eagle nest on the island at the big falls—they thought everybody would notice that—and when you come to think of it, that did nail the thing to the map—no getting around the nest on the ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough

... violin-player; he hummed an allegro of Locatelli's; his right arm imitated the movement of the bow; his left hand and his fingers seemed to be feeling along the handle. If he makes a false note, he stops, tightens or slackens his string, and strikes it with his nail, to make sure of its being in tune, and then takes up the piece where he left off. He beats time with his foot, moves his head, his feet, his hands, his arms, his body, as you may have seen Ferrari or Chiabran, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... the Iron Men of Congress. Does he mean the Cast-iron members or the Pig-iron members? For instance there are the rusty Heavy-weights, and then there are the fellows who are greedy about Tariff. Members of the scrap-iron and ten-penny nail order are, of course, not alluded to. All these are iron men, but, as every body knows, are not men of Iron. In view of its rusty legislation and legislators, we recommend Congress to hang out a sign—"Highest prices ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various

... which he only wore on extraordinary occasions. The Captain being at length attired to his own complete satisfaction, and having glanced at himself from head to foot in a shaving-glass which he removed from a nail for that purpose, took up his knotted stick, and said he ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... licking his lips as if he enjoyed himself; and the hawk soon came wheeling down to the ground, which he no sooner touched, than away ran the weasel, having got an excellent dinner at the expense of the hawk. He was not a bit the worse for the ride; while Mr. Hawk lay there as dead as a nail. The biter was bitten that time, wasn't he? It was a pretty good lesson to the hawk family not to be so greedy, though whether they ever profited by it is more than I can say. From the account that a little girl gave me of the incursions recently made upon her chickens, I judge that ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth

... or bed, like that in the coach-house, a good six feet square, with sides to it, perhaps six inches high. Tara watched the making of this dais, and saw the master cover its floor with a kind of sawdust that had a strong, pleasant smell, and then nail down a tightly stretched piece of old carpet over that, making altogether, as she thought, a very excellent bed. And as such Tara used it by night, but in the daytime she usually preferred to stretch herself beside the writing-table, ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... have the youngest in my arms. Our sweet prattler exclaims at every noise, There's dear papa, and runs to meet him. I pursue the medicine I began when you left us, and believe it efficacious. Exercise costs me a crown a day; our own horse disabled by the nail which penetrated the joint. I have grown less, and better pleased with myself; feel confident of your approbation. W. hastens the first assembly. F. feigns herself lame, that she may not accompany M., who submits to every little meanness, and bears all hints with insensibility. Has called ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... Ball, which had a coat of morocco leather, and thought herself as good as any fine lady, had nothing to say to such a thing. The next day came the little boy who owned the toys: he painted the Top red and yellow, and drove a brass nail into it; and the Top looked splendidly ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... helpful, but that "fools rush in where angels fear to tread." It was Mrs. O'Shaughnessy who was the real help. She is a woman of great courage and decision and of splendid sense and judgment. A few days ago a man she had working for her got his finger-nail mashed off and neglected to care for it. Mrs. O'Shaughnessy examined it and found that gangrene had set in. She didn't tell him, but made various preparations and then told him she had heard that if there was danger of blood-poisoning it would show if the finger ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... will not thus rid yourself of Crevecoeur; for his master's instructions are, that if he hath not this audience which he demands, he shall nail his gauntlet to the palisade before the Castle in token of mortal defiance on the part of his master, shall renounce the Duke's fealty to France, and declare ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... matter, half as broad as my nail and nearly as thick, after remaining for twenty-four hours under a bell-glass in an atmosphere saturated with water at the temperature of the human body, became supple—so much so as to be a little elastic. I could consequently dissect it, study it ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About

... culture of Europe and the practical inventive power of America. Potugin says that he had just visited the exposition at the Crystal Palace in London, and that he reflected that "our dear mother, Holy Russia, could go and hide herself in the lower regions, without disarranging a single nail in the place." Not a single thing in the whole vast exhibition had been invented by a Russian. Even the Sandwich Islanders had contributed something to the show. At another place in the story he declares that his father bought a Russian threshing machine, ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps

... to converse with Thomas, and holding up his dry, hooked forefinger, with its long, dirty nail, in warning, ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev

... soot. Here the ground beneath him was of such a suspicious and unreasonable softness that he apparently resolved to dig a hole and see what was the matter. In the course of his excavation he reached Mrs. Walters's feather-bed, upon which he must have fallen with fresh violence, tooth and nail, in the idea that so many feathers could not possibly ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen

... returned to her leafy bower alone. She took off her sunbonnet, hung it on its nail on the wall, shook down her braids, took off her shoes, stained with the mud of her husband's claim, and put on her slippers. Then she ascended to her eyrie in the little gallery, and gazed smilingly across the sunlit Bar. The two gaunt shadows of her husband and ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... of printing can be extended to every agent for the advancement of labor; from the nail and the mallet, up to the locomotive and the electric telegraph. Society enjoys all, by the abundance of its use, its consumption; and it enjoys all gratuitously. For as their effect is to diminish prices, it is evident that just so much of the price ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat

... frightful. As I heard the waves rushing along the sides of the ship, and roaring in my very ear, it seemed as if Death were raging round this floating prison, seeking for his prey: the mere starting of a nail, the yawning of a seam, might ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... killed just by my side." he said. "We were standing in a doorway together and something caught him in the face. He fell like a log, without a sound, as dead as a door-nail." ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... foremen to watch the work and keep it moving, while his son, who in other times would also have been a carpenter, had become a salesman, wore fancy vests and lived in Chicago. Ben was making money and for two years had not driven a nail or held a saw in his hand. He had an office in a frame building beside the New York Central tracks, south of Main Street, and employed a book-keeper and a stenographer. In addition to carpentry he had embarked ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson

... incautious attempts to find them may lead to fanciful interpretations which tend to cloud, rather than to elucidate gospel truths. Bunyan very properly warns his readers against giving the reins to their imaginations and indulging in speculations like those fathers, who in every nail, pin, stone, stair, knife, pot, and in almost every feather of a sacrificed bird could discern strange, distinct, and peculiar mysteries.[3] The same remark applies to the Jewish rabbis, who in their Talmud are full of mysterious shadows. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... tool-house at the bottom of the garden, and there, tied to a nail in the wall, was a pretty little black-and-tan ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... isn't it? Well, if you want to know, I came home early that night—I guess you hadn't been gone two hours—and the surprise did it, more than anything else, I suppose—she hadn't prepared a story. I got suspicious, named you at random, and hit the nail on the head. She broke down, thought I knew more than I did, and—and then ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... interment, a person, who remained behind, threw a brick after it, as a sign that all sorrow was past. The nearest friends or relations walked seven times round the grave, after each of them had driven a nail into the coffin. Hence the saying in our own time, when one signifies his willingness to do a friend a favour or kindness, "I will drive a nail into your coffin." When the body was put into the grave, every person present threw a handful of earth in ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... man! The day when the last workman had driven in the last nail, an attack of apoplexy carried him off, without giving him time to say, "Oh!" Two days after, all his relatives from the Limousin were swooping into Paris like a pack of wolves. Six millions to divide: what a godsend! Litigation followed, as a matter of course; and the ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau

... the face of the world. This custom appears to have continued to a late date. Thus, if O'Keeffe the dramatist may be believed, there was in the centre of Limerick Exchange a pillar with a circular plate of copper, about three feet in diameter, called "the nail," on which the earnest of all Stock Exchange bargains had to be paid. At Bristol there are said to have been four pillars called "the nails" in front of the Exchange, the purpose being the same; and similarly, at Liverpool, ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell

... didn't have her for the Argonautic Expedition," said Migwan. "Wouldn't she have looked great fastened on the front of the war canoe for a figurehead? Why, we could set her up on that high bluff like Liberty lighting the world—you could nail a torch to that ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey

... awkward gallantry had occasioned. When the ball began, he was too vain of his rank and precedency to suffer any one else to lead the bride down the first dance; but she was not, I believe, much obliged to him for his politeness; it cost her the tail of her wedding-gown and a broken nail, and she continued lame during the remainder of the night. In making an apology to her for his want of dexterity, and assuring her that he was not so awkward in handling the enemies of his country in battle as in handling friends he esteemed in a dance, he gave no quarter ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith

... of it all, I don't know.—If I'm put out o' the house ... [In a voice choked by tears.] I was born here, and here my father sat at his loom for more than forty year. Many was the time he said to mother: Mother, when I'm gone, keep hold o' the house. I've worked hard for it. Every nail means a night's weavin', every plank a year's dry bread. A man would ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann

... are," added Charity, clinching the nail. "They're right naught [Note 3], the whole boilin' ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt

... room," said the elder man, looking with surprise at Godefroid's neck, and at the nail to which the cord had been tied, and which was still in ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac

... went well at first. It was midsummer, and M. Chebe, always in his shirt-sleeves, was busily employed in getting settled. Each nail to be driven in the house was the subject of leisurely reflections, of endless discussions. It was the same with the garden. He had determined at first to make an English garden of it, lawns always green, winding paths shaded by shrubbery. But the ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet

... up stairs and wash your hands! Dorry, pick your hat off the floor and hang it on the nail! Not that nail—the third nail from the corner!" These were the kind of things Aunt Izzie was saying all day long. The children minded her pretty well, but they didn't exactly love her, I fear. They called her "Aunt Izzie" always, ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge

... were eager in his cause. Songs and poems were written against Louis XV, D'Argenson, as we know, being out of office, composed a play on Charles's martyrdom. So much contempt for Louis was excited, that a nail was knocked into the coffin of French royalty. The King, at the dictation of England, had arrested, bound, imprisoned, and expelled his kinsman, his guest, and (by the Treaty of Fontainebleau) ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang

... seldom served at table sliced in its crude state. It is principally grown for pickling: for which purpose it should be plucked when about half grown, or while the skin is tender, and can be easily broken by the nail. As the season of maturity approaches, the rind gradually hardens, and the fruit becomes worthless. In all stages of its growth, the flesh is comparatively spongy; and, in the process of pickling, absorbs a large quantity ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr



Words linked to "Nail" :   win, lunula, play, spike, horny structure, locate, hit, succeed, integumentary system, nail varnish, lunule, unguis, tack, head, fixing, shank, holdfast, linear unit, make it, clinch, doornail, matrix, half-moon, turn up, dactyl, clutch, football game, stem, pass, attach, linear measure, brad, football, come through, prehend, deliver the goods, clout, bring home the bacon, digit, staple, fastening, sail through, cop, seize, fastener



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