hangnail

[ hang-neyl ]

noun
  1. a small piece of partly detached skin at the side or base of the fingernail.

Origin of hangnail

1
1300–50; Middle English angenayle corn, Old English angnægl, equivalent to ang- (variant of enge narrow, painful; cognate with German eng,see anger) + nægl callus, nail; modern h- by association with hang

Words Nearby hangnail

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use hangnail in a sentence

  • He said in an audible tone that the New Yorker was a human hangnail, no matter where he was born.

    Somewhere in Red Gap | Harry Leon Wilson
  • But it did matter to me that I had to dine on this hangnail pared from a sheep.

British Dictionary definitions for hangnail

hangnail

/ (ˈhæŋˌneɪl) /


noun
  1. a piece of skin torn away from, but still attached to, the base or side of a fingernail

Origin of hangnail

1
C17: from Old English angnægl, from enge tight + nægl nail; influenced by hang

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012