hangnail

[ hang-neyl ]

noun

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

hangnail

/ ˈhæŋˌneɪl /

noun

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of hangnail¹

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of hangnail¹

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

Example Sentences

It almost seems like a hangnail would keep Joey out of the lineup.

From Los Angeles Times

Phrases like “because I’m the Avatar” pop up regularly enough to become lemon juice on a hangnail, and may lead you to appreciate the contortions, not simply the bending, that these performers engage in to make us believe in them.

From Salon

“I’m fearful,” Burgess wrote, “that I will hear next that an arrestee has a hangnail and is declined.”

From Seattle Times

There’s the gunshot victim with a hole in the chest, the terrified baby-sitter with the battered infant, the doctor who’s physically attacked by the son of a fatal heart attack victim after another patient accuses him of being anti-Semitic, the young woman who comes in to get felt up, the hypochondriac in for her hangnail.

From Los Angeles Times

The entire novel is imbued with reverence for small moments; Blanca describes her love for George as finding a detail as insignificant as a hangnail “entirely overwhelming, too lovely to bear.”

From New York Times