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doornail
[ dawr-neyl, dohr- ]
noun
- a large-headed nail formerly used for strengthening or ornamenting doors.
doornail
/ ˈdɔːˌneɪl /
noun
- (as) dead as a doornaildead beyond any doubt
Word History and Origins
Idioms and Phrases
- dead as a doornail, stone-dead:
After midnight, the town is dead as a doornail.
More idioms and phrases containing doornail
see dead as a doornail .Example Sentences
Bethany is dumb as a doornail, and seems to bore Don about as much as his high-profile clients do.
Otherwise, slavish adaptations–being, punctiliously observant adaptations–are likely to be a dead doornail.
The rat's dead as a doornail, and now all of us have got things to do, but fast!
And when the troll saw the sun he burst—and was as dead as a doornail!
He had been a great King but he was deader than a doornail now.
"Say, it's been deader'n a doornail around here for a week," confessed the Meadow Street youth.
A loud crack was heard, and she was seen to spring up and fall back upon the snow, dead as a doornail.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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