Nailed

How to spell nailed

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce nailed

What does nailed mean?

1. verbFastened or secured something using one or more nails.
2. verbInformally, achieved or performed something perfectly and with complete success.

Nailed in a sentence

• The carpenter nailed the loose floorboard back into place.

• She nailed the job interview and got an offer the next morning.

• They nailed a row of timber slats across the fence.

• The gymnast nailed her final landing without a wobble.

Where does nailed come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the past tense of the verb 'nail', which grows directly from the Old English noun 'nægl', meaning both a fingernail and a small spike of metal. That noun has deep Germanic roots, with close cousins in Old Norse 'nagl' and German 'Nagel', and it goes back to an ancient root meaning a claw or nail. The verb sense, 'to fasten with a nail', developed naturally from the object itself, and English speakers were already 'nailing' boards together by the medieval period. The lively modern slang meaning, to do something perfectly or to succeed completely, only became common in the twentieth century, borrowing the idea of striking a nail squarely on the head. The spelling is regular: the silent magic of the 'ai' digraph carries the long vowel, and the '-ed' simply marks the past, so the only real care needed is keeping the 'ai' rather than writing 'naled' or 'nayled'.

How the word is built

• nail (from Old English nægl: a metal fastener or fingernail)
• -ed (past tense/participle suffix)