Word.ws English Dictionary

tooth and nail

tooth and nail adverb: viciously; with all one's strength or power; without holding back.

Adverb

tooth and nail

  1. (figuratively) Viciously; with all one's strength or power; without holding back.
    • For a century, the two families fought tooth and nail over control of the land.
    • I shall fight tooth and nail for international copyright and stage-right, […] .a. 1884, Charles Reade, 1887, Charles L. Reade, Compton Reade, Charles Reade, Dramatist, Novelist, Journalist: A Memoir Compiled Chiefly from His Literary Remains, Volume 2, page 229

tooth and nail meaning in Tamil

tooth and nail in Tamil

முழுமூச்சுடன்

Examples of tooth and nail in a sentence

  • At that time, I was young in the Lord, stood firm on what I believed, and I fought tooth and nail for what I thought was right in my mind and with God.2007, Patrick Bentley, The Birth of a Song, page 76:
  • The women struggle tooth and nail to gain office skills so they don't have to make Jell—O or pencils forever.2008, Laura Schenone, The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken: A Search for Food and Family:
  • Not over, fighting 'em tooth and nail on it.2011 Allen Gregory, "Pilot" (season 1, episode 1)
  • We are striving tooth and nail to kill anything remotely suggestive of the hulas of ancient Hawaii.2012 November 29, Christine Skwiot, The Purposes of Paradise: U.S. Tourism and Empire in Cuba and Hawai'i:

Synonyms of tooth and nail

Forms of tooth and nail

alternative formwith tooth and nail

Origin of tooth and nail

From the Middle English phrase (with) nayles and teþ (“viciously, ferociously”, literally “(with) nails and teeth”).

Words formed from tooth and nail

Questions about tooth and nail

What does tooth and nail mean?
Tooth and nail means viciously; with all one's strength or power; without holding back.
What is tooth and nail in Tamil?
Tooth and nail in Tamil is முழுமூச்சுடன். See Tooth and nail meaning in Tamil.
How do you use tooth and nail in a sentence?
At that time, I was young in the Lord, stood firm on what I believed, and I fought tooth and nail for what I thought was right in my mind and with God.
What part of speech is tooth and nail?
Tooth and nail is an adverb.

Words near tooth and nail in the dictionary

  1. tooter
  2. tooters
  3. Tootgarook
  4. tooth
  5. tooth and claw
  6. tooth and nail
  7. tooth and nail syndrome
  8. tooth and tong
  9. tooth comb
  10. tooth combs
  11. tooth decay

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tooth and nail (page history and authors); tooth and nail (Tamil Wiktionary) (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: “tooth and nail.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tooth_and_nail. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.