To be ‘as dead as a doornail’ is to be utterly dead, devoid of life (when applied to people, plants or animals) or finished with, unusable (when applied to inanimate objects).

Apr 30, 2014 · Faith without works is feebler than nothing, and dead as a doornail. As you can see, contrary to popular belief, William Shakespeare did not coin the phrase. It was around …

Oct 18, 2022 · It’s a medieval carpentry term for a nail that’s been “ clinched ” — hammered into a door with any protruding part hammered flat. It wasn’t going anywhere, making the doornail …

Feb 22, 2012 · If you hammer a nail through a piece of timber and then flatten the end over on the inside so it can’t be removed again (a technique called clinching), the nail is said to be dead, …

With no life.dead as a hammer - Without any life at all." ( Whistlin' Dixie: A Dictionary of Southern Expressions ) "dead as four o'clock - Quite dead, refers to either the 'dead' end of the …

If you were to renovate or improve something you could pull the nails from the old and hammer them into the new. But it was customary to hammer nails into doors, in particular, in a way that …

Dec 19, 1998 · If you hammer a nail through a piece of timber and then flatten the end over on the inside so it can’t be removed again (a technique called clinching), the nail is said to be dead, …

To be no longer alive, for certain. (Doornails were hammered in a such a way that they could not be reused.) I poked that squirrel with a stick and, yeah, it's as dead as a doornail. A: "Are you …

Aug 16, 2012 · “Dead as a doornail” goes back to the 14th century when doornails were as common as…well…doors. In the days before screws, carpenters would hammer a nail through …

Oct 28, 2017 · ‘Dead as a doornail’ is just one such example. The term means that something is totally and completely dead; unusable and spent. If something is as dead as a doornail, there …