Word.ws English Dictionary

drive a nail in someone's coffin

drive a nail in someone's coffin verb: to do something tending to hasten someone's death or ruin.

Verb

drive a nail in someone's coffin (third-person singular simple present drives a nail in someone's coffin, present participle driving a nail in someone's coffin, simple past drove a nail in someone's coffin, past participle driven a nail in someone's coffin)

  1. To do something tending to hasten someone's death or ruin.

Forms of drive a nail in someone's coffin

third-person singular presentdrives a nail in someone's coffin
present participledriving a nail in someone's coffin
pastdrove a nail in someone's coffin
past participledriven a nail in someone's coffin
alternative formdrive a nail into someone's coffin

Questions about drive a nail in someone's coffin

What does drive a nail in someone's coffin mean?
Drive a nail in someone's coffin means to do something tending to hasten someone's death or ruin.
What part of speech is drive a nail in someone's coffin?
Drive a nail in someone's coffin is a verb.
What is the past tense of drive a nail in someone's coffin?
The past tense of drive a nail in someone's coffin is drove a nail in someone's coffin.

Words near drive a nail in someone's coffin in the dictionary

  1. drivable
  2. drive
  3. drive a coach and horses through
  4. drive a coach and six through
  5. drive a hard bargain
  6. drive a nail in someone's coffin
  7. drive a nail where it will go
  8. drive a stake through its heart
  9. drive a truck through something
  10. drive a wedge
  11. drive at

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: drive a nail in someone's coffin (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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