NAIL

Definitions

1. 1. To fasten with a nail or nails; to close up or secure by means of nails; as, to nail boards to the beams. He is now dead, and nailed in his chest. Chaucer.
2. 2. To stud or boss with nails, or as with nails. The rivets of your arms were nailed with gold. Dryden.
3. 3. To fasten, as with a nail; to bind or hold, as to a bargain or to acquiescence in an argument or assertion; hence, to catch; to trap. When they came to talk of places in town, you saw at once how I nailed them. Goldsmith.
4. 4. To spike, as a cannon. [Obs.] Crabb. To nail a lie or an assertion, etc., to detect and expose it, so as to put a stop to its currency; -- an expression probably derived from the former practice of shopkeepers, who were accustomed to nail bad or counterfeit pieces of money to the counter.