Where did the expression 'dead as a doornail' come from?

Question

What exactly is a doornail and how can you be as dead as one?

Answer 1

Peggy Sue is correct - Dickens WAS using an older --much older!-- expression. In fact, he then spends a humorous paragraph explaining he MUST use the expression, even though he doesn't think it makes much sense --

"But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for"
(page 1 of "A Christmas Carol")

That older use goes back through Shakespeare (1590) to at least 1350 (see links below).

But WHY?

Apparently, it has nothing to do with characteristics of the nail itself, but is based on how the nail was USED. In the days before screws and rivets, such a thing as a door, heavy and always moving (so that nails were in danger of dislodging) would be secured by driving the nails all the way through the wood and then bending the protruding end of the nails back. Carpenters call this "clenching".

Now nails were rather expensive, so when you tore a place down, you would retrieve all the nails you could. But if you had clenched a nail it was no longer of any use-- it was "dead". And doornails were the main ones that fell in this category.

I list here a couple of articles that make basically the same point. But also take a look at the SITES they are on -- two EXCELLENT sites to visit when you have this kind of question about the origin of an expression. ("etymonline.com" is also very good, though it has less detail on longer expressions).

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/38250.html
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-dea1.htm

Dictionary definition of "clench" (American Heritage listing, about half way down the page) -

"To fix or secure (a nail or bolt, for example) by bending down or flattening the pointed end that protrudes."
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/clench

Answer 2

I'm not sure, but I think a doornail is part of the hinges on a door, and it's "dead" because it's not, and never has been, alive. So to be dead as a doornail is to be so dead, it's unimaginable for the person to be alive.

Once again, I'm not sure about any of this. I'm just guessing.

Answer 3

[A] that's an historic expression: we've a connection with this relationship decrease back to 1350, and it also seems contained in the fourteenth-century artwork The ingenious and prescient of Piers Plowman and in Shakespeare’s Henry IV. 7fc56270e7a7fa81a5935b72eacbe29nother expression, of fairly later date, is as lifeless as a herring, because maximum folk purely stated herrings at the same time as they were lengthy lifeless and preserved; there are different similes with an same meaning, which incorporates lifeless as mutton, or lifeless as a stone. yet why fairly a doornail, fairly than in simple terms any previous nail? might want to or not it truly is because of the repetition of sounds, and the much better perfect rhythm of the word lifeless sufficient for you? when compared with the version devoid of door? 7fc56270e7a7fa81a5935b72eacbe29lmost surely the euphony has brought with reference to the word to live to inform the tale longer than the possibilities I’ve quoted. yet might want to there some thing particular about a doornail? the established reason given is that a doornail became between the heavy studded nails on the exterior of a medieval door, or probably that the word refers back to the fairly massive one on which the knocker rested. A doornail, because of its length and probably antiquity, might want to look lifeless sufficient for any proverb; the only on which the knocker sat may be concept fairly lifeless because of the shape of cases it were knocked on the top. yet William and Mary Morris, contained in the Morris Dictionary of note and word Origins, quote a correspondent who factors out that it would want to come from a common time period in carpentry. in case you hammer a nail by a piece of timber and then flatten the suitable over on the interior so it may’t be bumped off again (a approach referred to as clinching), the nail is declared to be lifeless, because you are able to’t use it again. Doornails might want to very likely were subjected to this remedy to furnish better power contained in the years in the previous screws were accessible. so as that they were lifeless because they’d been clinched. It sounds conceivable, yet no matter if it’s suitable or no longer we are able to likely by no potential recognize.

Answer 4

I think it was firs tused by Charles Dickens in a Christmas Carol to describe Jacob Marley. A doornail is just a piece of metal holding part of a door - cold, hard, lifeless - pretty darn dead.

Answer 5

a doornail that gets rusty is a useless nail and is as good as dead. if you have seen a rusty nail, you'd get the picture.

in case you haven't seen a doornail, it's a nail that's used to fasten the hinges onto wooden doors.

Answer 6

I think it was around before Dickens, because he uses it to describe Jacob Marley, then says it would seem more appropriate for the saying to be "dead as a coffin nail". So it seems that the phrase was already in use at that time.

Answer 7

doornail-nail on a door
dead-equals dead.
so ur dead like a nail on a door

Answer 8

when papaw used to say this about road kill or the chickens, would look at him like he was crazy, then Grammy while resting one day , asked her, she just smile and said well child, see them door nails in that door, cold as ice, but to form it that way, oh, it got hot and had spark to it , as we do at times, but once they dipped it in the water after it was formed, then it gets as stiff and hard as a 4 day old corpse, back in those days, they would have there the dead in there sitting parlor, until they were buried.