"doornail" meaning in English

See doornail in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: doornails [plural]
Etymology: From Middle English dore-nail, equivalent to door + nail. Etymology templates: {{inh|en|enm|dore-nail}} Middle English dore-nail, {{af|en|door|nail}} door + nail Head templates: {{en-noun}} doornail (plural doornails)
  1. A nail with a wide head, traditionally used in the construction and ornamentation of wooden doors. Synonyms: door nail, door-nail Derived forms: dead as a doornail, deader than a doornail, dumb as a doornail
    Sense id: en-doornail-en-noun-q~8GTN0z Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for doornail meaning in English (1.1kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "enm",
        "3": "dore-nail"
      },
      "expansion": "Middle English dore-nail",
      "name": "inh"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "door",
        "3": "nail"
      },
      "expansion": "door + nail",
      "name": "af"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From Middle English dore-nail, equivalent to door + nail.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "doornails",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "doornail (plural doornails)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "derived": [
        {
          "word": "dead as a doornail"
        },
        {
          "word": "deader than a doornail"
        },
        {
          "word": "dumb as a doornail"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A nail with a wide head, traditionally used in the construction and ornamentation of wooden doors."
      ],
      "id": "en-doornail-en-noun-q~8GTN0z",
      "links": [
        [
          "nail",
          "nail"
        ],
        [
          "head",
          "head"
        ],
        [
          "construction",
          "construction"
        ],
        [
          "ornamentation",
          "ornamentation"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "door nail"
        },
        {
          "word": "door-nail"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "doornail"
}
{
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "dead as a doornail"
    },
    {
      "word": "deader than a doornail"
    },
    {
      "word": "dumb as a doornail"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "enm",
        "3": "dore-nail"
      },
      "expansion": "Middle English dore-nail",
      "name": "inh"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "door",
        "3": "nail"
      },
      "expansion": "door + nail",
      "name": "af"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From Middle English dore-nail, equivalent to door + nail.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "doornails",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "doornail (plural doornails)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English compound terms",
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms derived from Middle English",
        "English terms inherited from Middle English"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A nail with a wide head, traditionally used in the construction and ornamentation of wooden doors."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "nail",
          "nail"
        ],
        [
          "head",
          "head"
        ],
        [
          "construction",
          "construction"
        ],
        [
          "ornamentation",
          "ornamentation"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "door nail"
    },
    {
      "word": "door-nail"
    }
  ],
  "word": "doornail"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.