Word.ws English Dictionary

handnail

handnail noun: synonym of fingernail.

Noun

handnail (plural handnails)

  1. (uncommon) Synonym of fingernail.
    • On opening the lead, the fleſh, hair, and toe and hand nails, were as perfect and ſound as though he had not been dead ſix hours.1772 February, Sylvanus Urban [pen name; Edward Cave], editor, The Gentleman’s Magazine, and Historical Chronicle, volume XLII, London: […] D. Henry, page 92
    • He looked very young, almost a boy, and had a habit of biting off handnails.1965, Soviet Literature, page 53
    Synonyms:
    fingernail

Examples of handnail in a sentence

  • Localisation: Handnails, rarely footnails (infection not very common in India).1966, The Journal of the Christian Medical Association of India, page 397:
  • We compared our hands: even the corns and handnails were the same.1969, Aleksandr Abramov, Sergei Abramov, Horsemen from Nowhere, Mir Publishers, page 21:
  • Deformed, dirtily stained and made extremely fragile, toenails as well as handnails of Kanemi Rice Oil Disease patients come off suddenly, to be replaced by new ones which face the same fate.1973, AMPO: Japan-Asia Quarterly Review, page 29:
  • It was also found that making artificial nails, which comprises making a model of handnails of each person, making a plastic cover for the nails[…]1991, Masami Hanabusa, An Analysis of Japanese Patent Law: Translated from the Original Treatise, Brunswick Publishing, →ISBN, page 32:

Synonyms of handnail

Forms of handnail

pluralhandnails
alternative formhand-nail

Origin of handnail

From hand + nail. Compare Old English handnæġl.

Questions about handnail

What does handnail mean?
Handnail means synonym of fingernail.
How do you use handnail in a sentence?
Localisation: Handnails, rarely footnails (infection not very common in India).
What part of speech is handnail?
Handnail is a noun.
What is the plural of handnail?
The plural of handnail is handnails.

Words near handnail in the dictionary

  1. handmen
  2. handmill
  3. handmills
  4. handmirror
  5. handmirrors
  6. handnail
  7. handnails
  8. handoff
  9. handoffs
  10. Handong
  11. handout

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: handnail (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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Cite this entry: “handnail.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/handnail. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.