I know it means that youre dead, but the logic behind it is obscure. Dickens was among the celebrated authors who liked the phrase and made a point of musing on it in a christmas carol. Today anything that is totally withered or a failed project or situation that is hopeless is considered to be as dead as a doornail. Where did the expression dead as a doornail come from. What the heck is a doornail and why does it mean something. Another expression, of rather later date, is as dead as a herring, because most people only saw herrings when they were long dead and preserved. Dead as a doornail sookie stackhouse book 5 kindle. If a fleet won a clear victory the ships would sail back to port. It would be difficult to remove and even more difficult to use again elsewhere. He continues suggesting that it could be a coffinnail. When an aging cabin or barn was torn down the valuable nails would be salvaged so he could reuse them in later construction.
Dead as a doornail by tonya kappes is the 5th book in the kenni lowry mystery series, and another fun book. Doornails were hammered in a such a way that they could not be reused. Used for both inanimate objects and once living beings. One idea is that this nail was considered to be dead because the usual metallic ring of the nail was deadened to a dull knock as the sound was diffused into the door. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffinnail as the deadest piece of. A doornail was either a heavyheaded nail for studding an outer door or the knob on which a door knocker strikes. A loud crack was heard, and she was seen to spring up and fall back upon the snow, dead as a doornail. Listen to dead as a doornail by charlaine harris at. This may be the source of the deadness, as such a nail would be unusable afterwards. Definition of dead as a doornail in the idioms dictionary. There are different sources available which talks about its origin. Many other nouns can be substituted for doorknob, perhaps the oldest and original being doornail used by william shakespeare, in. Besides dead as a doornail and fit as a fiddle here is just a small list of other expressions that contain alliteration. Life would eventually be pounded out of the nail in that way.
The term goes back to the 0s, the phrase dead as a doornail is found in poems of the time. The relevant line in the original poem stated, fey withou. People would go out in the night and steal the nails from their neighbors doors. What is the origin of the expression dead as a doornail. Dead as a doornail definition, a largeheaded nail formerly used for strengthening or ornamenting doors. Is as dumb as a door nail a metaphor or a simile answers. You might as well junk that car, the engine is dead as a door nail. How has the meaning of dead as a doornail changed since shakespeare wrote it. Dead as a doornail sookie stackhouse book 5 kindle edition by harris, charlaine.
The false dead ringer origin story may have you wondering about saved by the bell. Its the first full moon since jason was bitten by the werepanther felton norris in dead to the world. The saying is of course strengthened by the fact that nails are inanimate. I dont mean to say that i know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a. You might even call it deadat least in regards to its purpose.
Another slightly blackhumoured theory is that the doornail may have been said to be dead because of the number of times the knocker struck it on its head. Your name to display optional do not use your real name. One is that the doornail in this case is actually a very largeheaded nail or metal plate affixed to the outside of the door on which the swinging doorknocker strikes. This ones pretty selfexplanatory if you ask shmoop. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that marley was as dead as a. According to the oxford english dictionary, the earliest appearance of the phrase dead as a doornail appears in william langlands 14th century religious allegorical poem, piers plowman. The origin of the phrase as dead as a doornail today i found out. In this theory, the doornail would be dead because it had been struck so often. Goes way past brain death, if your are dead as a doornail prepare to become a hotel for worms. In a method called clinching, a nail is hammered through a piece of wood and then flattened at the other end so that it cant fall out or be removed. Words, phrases or sayings origins, meanings by brownielocks. Dodos perhaps are the only creatures with a similar lack of animation. Dead as a doornail, fit as a fiddle disappearing idioms. The narrator of the novel declares that marley is as dead as a doornail using this phrase.
How about dead as a doornail a this is an ancient expression. Thus, someone who is unequivocally dead is said to be deadas a doornail. This selfevident truth has been expressed ln the phrase. Sookie stackhouse is back for more adventures in the fifth book in the southern vampire series. As dead as a doornail meaning in the cambridge english. As dead as a doornail meaning, origin, and sentences literary.
Dead as a doornail is the fifth book in charlaine harriss series the southern vampire mysteries summary. This is exactly the type of thing jack cade would say if you ran into him on the street. It can be used figuratively or literally in any context. Therefore if someone is deader than a doornail, hes not going to be useful again, and is, in fact, now an inanimate creature, permanently. That idea from last weeks meeting is dead as a doornail now that the ceo has vetoed it. It reminds us that you cant use a doornail after its been hammered and bent into place. If a person or animal is as dead as a doornail, they are completely dead. The technique is sometimes referred to as deadnailing, according to the morris dictionary of word and phase origins, because a clinched nail cannot be easily removed.
Dead as a doornail definition of dead as a doornail at. Smalltown cocktail waitress sookie stackhouse has had more than her share of experience with the supernaturalbut now its really hitting close to home. The phrase is deader than a doornail or dead as a doornail it means utterly and completely dead either literally or figuratively. Dead as a doornail since ordinary nails arent used in making doors, perhaps the nail in this phrase, which can be traced all the way back to 50, was a small metal plate nailed on a door that visitors pounded with the knockers attached to it when announcing their arrival. Doornail definition of doornail by the free dictionary. I dont mean to say that i know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly. Dead as a doornail is a phrase which means not alive, unequivocally deceased. Dead as a doornail in michael quinion, ballyhoo, buckaroo, and spuds. It is said that it came from a poem named the vision of william concerning piers plowman in the 14 th century, where is mentioned as. I poked that squirrel with a stick and, yeah, its as dead as a doornail. Dead as a doornail definition of dead as a doornail by. Faith without works is feebler than nothing, and dead as a doornail. When sookie sees her brother jasons eyes start to change, she knows hes about to turn into a werepanther for the first timea transformation he embraces more readily than most shapeshifters she knows.
Thus, it simply means dead, very dead, quite dead, certainly dead, etc. While it wasnt at all widespread, there were, in fact, bells that were used for the very purpose of alerting those above that you were still alive, but it was only on a very few graveslikely people who had such a great fear of being buried alive. Its the first full moon since her brother jason was bitten by a were panther and she knows that hes going to turn into a panther before he does. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading dead as a doornail sookie stackhouse book 5. Origin of the phrase dead ringer today i found out. As with so many etymologies, we dont know exactly why door nails were used in the phrase rather than something like coffin nails, but we have a reasonably good educated guess. Although this idea seems to make sense, we cant find any oed citations in which clinching is referred to as deadnailing. Dead as a doornail sookie stackhousesouthern vampire. I picked up the phone, but the line was dead as a doornail. Lucy lowell is found dead, and it looks like natural causes, but kenni knows its. However the most likely explanation is that it comes from a standard term in carpentry. Dead as a doornail hardcover march 1, 1998 by grant michaels author.
The rats dead as a doornail, and now all of us have got things to do, but fast all of a sudden one of the horses dropped down dead as a doornail. Sheriff kendrick kenni lowry is the granddaughter of the late sheriff elmer sims. In this he attributes chilon of sparta as saying dont badmouth a dead man. Calvin norris comes to watch over him and help him, and jason turns into a half manhalf panther. This nail is then said to be dead as it cant be reused and it was a practice particularly common in doors since they needed to be durable and secure. Charles dicken also used this phrase in his book called a christmas carol as. Where does the saying dead as a doornail come from. That is the reason people say as dead as a door nail but mostly the saying goes like as dead as a dodo a dodo is an extinct flightless bird of mauritius an island of the indian ocean, one of the three species that constituted the family raphidae, usually placed with pigeons in the order columbiformes but sometimes separated as an order. Dead as a doornail is one of the many idiomatic similes used for emphasis to intensify the adjective. I use the saying as dead as a door nail a lot, but i am. However, the expression does not appear in the postprintingpress era c. In a christmas carol, charles dickens wrote about the questionable phrase, dead as a doornail, saying.
Ingenious tales of words and their origins, washington, d. The expression was in widespread colloquial use in england by the 16th century, when shakespeare gave these lines to the rebel leader jack cade in king henry. A dead nail is one that cant be used again and all the nails on a door then were dead. Discover how a saying about a deceased nail has lived on for centuries. Thus, the bent nail was commonly called dead not just to do with. I found the mouse who lived in our wall, lying on his back with his feet in the airas dead as a doorknob usage notes. Nails were in short supply and high demand in colonial times. We finally found johns cat run over in the next road.
Doornail was one of the heavy studded nails on the outside door. This made the nail unusable later, or dead giving the phrase dead as a door nail to mean something that is really dead. I dont mean to say that i know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a doornail. One of the other answers suggests that dead as a doornail originated in the 14th century poem piers plowman.