toenail

Pluraltoenails

Formstoenails, toenailing, toenailed

1. 1
   nouncountable

   The thin, tough, transparent plate of keratin that covers the upper side of a toe's tip.

   A fungal infection had turned his toenail thick and yellow.

   Long hikes in tight boots can bruise your toenails badly.

2. 2
   verbtransitive

   To fasten two pieces of lumber together by driving nails or screws at an angle through both boards.

   She toenailed each rafter into the ridge beam to lock the frame in place.

   Framers often toenail the joists where face-nailing wouldn't hold well.

   Note

   A carpenter's verb built from the same toe + nail as the nail on a toe, though here the nail is the fastener being driven. The slanted drive is the point: it joins boards where nailing straight into end grain would hold poorly. It inflects regularly (toenailed, toenailing) and takes the piece being fastened as its direct object.

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