I. noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a nail bomb (= containing nails )
as tough as nails/as tough as old boots (= very tough )
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He’s as tough as nails – a good man to have on the team.
bite your nails (= bite the nails on your fingers, especially because you are nervous )
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I wish I could stop biting my nails.
chew your lip/nails
nail clippers
nail file
nail polish
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pink nail polish
nail salon
nail scissors
nails...bitten to the quick
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Her nails were bitten to the quick .
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
final
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Some Tories have already warned that council tax could be the final nail in John Major's coffin.
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For me this was the final nail in the coffin of a terminally dull product.
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A final nail in the coffin had been hammered in by Wrede.
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And Glentoran's win at Larne put the final nail in their faint qualifying hopes.
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The second Nottingham try put the final nail into Gloucester's coffin.
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This conclusion is the final nail in the coffin of the notion of sentential meaning.
long
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She reached for his hand, clutched it and dug in her long nails .
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She looks elegant in her taupe pantsuit, her long nails manicured, her hair freshly washed, her makeup perfect.
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He dug his long nails into them and stumbled to the cooking pot, almost running.
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To Polly the long , crimson-enamelled nails looked as though they had been dipped in blood.
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One has long nails painted blue; the other wears a felt hat with a feather.
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Robert: I need a long nail to go right through.
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They have long hair and long nails and, not unnaturally, a white pallor, and very little to eat.
red
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Traces of her red nail varnish, he noticed, could still be seen where her fingertips hadn't been eaten.
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Her attempts to be my friend were false like her bright red nail varnish.
rusty
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Thérèse did not possess a hair shirt, or a belt spiked with rusty nails , or a scourge.
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Tetanus: it doesn't have to be a rusty nail , the caption read.
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In one bony hand he clutched an oak club driven through with rusty nails .
■ NOUN
bomb
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David Copeland, 23, has admitted planting three nail bombs in London last April.
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An estate agency employee in East Yorkshire suffered serious injuries from a nail bomb .
clipper
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At his own suggestion, Reg said Singh had personally removed that clause from my contract with his nail clippers .
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It was like trimming a lawn with nail clippers .
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First, use nail clippers rather than scissors to cut the mails.
file
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I had to bend over, parallel to the body, to get the nail file under the nails.
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He glanced around, then took a nail file from his pocket and set to work on the padlock.
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Contains: two pairs of angled scissors, tweezers, large and small angled cuticle pushers, nail file and cleaner.
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If they're a bit blunt rub the tip with a nail file .
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Peg opens a drawer and gets out a nail file from a manicure set.
finger
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Her finger nails were shiny long and black, and her face was floury white.
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The figure leaned over, struck once and Martin felt his face tear as long, jagged finger nails ripped into him.
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Quiet, reserved, with finger nails bitten down to the quick, Jim stood just five foot six inches tall.
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Male speaker There's no more finger nail inspections and things like that.
polish
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A muscle near her right cheekbone fluttered at erratic intervals, and the nail polish was chipped.
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To remove melted plastic from an appliance, unplug appliance and dab off spot with nail polish remover.
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That nail polish was a positive match, and she's got some explaining to do.
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Parma and Jaivi, Hatti and Latchi called me over to their bed to try out the nail polishes .
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As well as keeping some nail polish remover at home, make sure you carry some handy remover of emergencies.
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Did I happen to have any nail polish with me?
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Even fashion products such as nail polish or lipstick, which do have regular changes of colour, can benefit greatly.
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Men are wearing nail polish , did you know?
varnish
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When the paint has dried, varnish it over with clear nail varnish to keep the colours bright and shiny.
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Her fingers were stained with dirt, her nail varnish chipped.
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Traces of her red nail varnish , he noticed, could still be seen where her fingertips hadn't been eaten.
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They were slim, pale and elegant, and she wore colourless or pearl nail varnish .
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Her nail varnish was pearly pink.
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This can be prevented by painting the surface of the clean key cap with clear nail varnish .
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As hair gets tied back, so nail varnish comes off and old, stain-absorbing clothes go on.
■ VERB
bite
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Breaking a habit, be it over-eating, over-drinking, biting your nails or jumping to conclusions, is a tall order.
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They are biting their nails , glancing from their consoles to the countdown clock.
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Emmie had stood in the doorway, biting her nails .
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In fact, they had fewer reasons to bite their nails over the course of the century.
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You overeat, smoke, drink, bite your nails etc.
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During a time-out, Eddie bites her nails .
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And he had bitten his nails so that his fingers hurt and ran with blood.
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Her eyes went back to the screen, and she bit her nails .
break
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Every person born female eventually experiences the annoyance of a broken nail , the peculiar agony of a bad haircut.
chew
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She chewed her nails in Muir of Ord.
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When you left, Faunce was chewing nails !
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And there one writing, probably a letter, holding the paper sideways and chewing her nails .
drive
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They had a hammer to drive the nails in.
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He could drive a nail home in two perfect blows to the head.
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In one bony hand he clutched an oak club driven through with rusty nails .
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We drove a nail through its heart.
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His ears felt as if some one were trying to drive six inch nails into them.
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Make sure you drive nails into the joists, not just into the subfloor.
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You were invited to drive the nail through the timber to the other side with one blow from a hammer.
fight
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Opponents in Parliament, which has to vote on the measure, vowed to fight it tooth and nail .
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He fought tooth and nail for 15 months before going to sleep one final night last week.
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They fought tooth and nail through an initial series of leagues and finished in seven knockout matches.
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I know we doctors have fought you tooth and nail .
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Exceptionally, if a Bill is extremely controversial, the opposition may fight it tooth and nail even at this stage.
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Legislation aimed at forcing the power firms to clean up their act is being fought tooth and nail by the polluters.
hammer
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Or does one hammer the nails into one's own coffin?
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The Halutzim were busy packing boxes, hammering nails , tying up chests, writing labels with thick pens and pencils.
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This will be awkward to achieve ergonomically because it is more easy for a person to hammer nails straight in.
hit
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She might dislike Piers Morrison, but he had a knack of hitting the nail on the head.
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These poems will make me famous. Hit the nail on the head.
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If Jack had been trying to find a way to impress Polly he had hit the nail on the head.
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My friend, you have hit the nail on the head.
hung
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I took off my shoulder bag and binoculars and hung them on nails hammered into the slightly crumbling concrete.
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Gabriel put them all into a canvas bag and hung them on a nail inside the cottage door.
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He carried it like that to the garage and hung it on a nail just inside the door.
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When I had finished I took off my coat and hung it on a nail .
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Clothes are hung from nails , and cooking is done over an open fire.
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A hurricane lamp was hung on another nail .
paint
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Don't paint short nails with dark colours.
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She was wearing sandals which exposed her toes, and she had painted her nails .
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Chapter Eight Margaret and Maura were in Maura's bedroom, painting their nails .
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I had never seen her with painted nails .
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I decide to change, it's easier than painting my nails again.
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The clear-\#painted nails of her feet on the carpet.
pull
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Don't struggle: take a grip with pincers or pliers and remove the sucker as though pulling out a nail .
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I pulled a couple of nails and slid out a board.
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Choose a claw hammer, which can pull nails out as well as drive them.
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As the surgeon pulled the nail up, black juice ran out.
put
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It was hard to hear what was being said, but some one had put a nail through a pipe.
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And Glentoran's win at Larne put the final nail in their faint qualifying hopes.
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It not only puts another nail in socialism's coffin, but deprives him of a peerage.
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The second Nottingham try put the final nail into Gloucester's coffin.
use
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Remove all nails 4 Reposition the battens, using galvanised nails.
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For the fourth corner he used a nail .
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The bow theme is used to cover-up the nail and string holding the picture.
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Then finish nailing , using the nails that come with the hangers.
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If you must nail your deck, there are some tricks you can use .
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
(as) hard as nails
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Hard as nails he may be but don't let anyone tell you Hank hasn't got a sense of humour.
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Beautiful but hard as nails, she'd thought then.
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Willie O'Connor is as hard as nails and Liam Simpson takes no prisoners.
do your/sb's hair/nails/make-up etc
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I paint her face and do her hair.
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I said, I did , I was approached about who does your hair?
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It's to do with the hair.
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Now, do you want me to do your make-up, or not?
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One test of our response to the change made by age is what we decide to do about grey hair.
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She said that the day of the wedding, she should do my hair first.
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The working class adolescent of the 60s had quite a job deciding what to do with his hair.
fight tooth and nail
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We had to fight tooth and nail to get the government to admit they were wrong.
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He fought tooth and nail for 15 months before going to sleep one final night last week.
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He would also fight tooth and nail to keep her from the likes of Tommy Allen.
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Legislation aimed at forcing the power firms to clean up their act is being fought tooth and nail by the polluters.
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They fought tooth and nail through an initial series of leagues and finished in seven knockout matches.
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They fought tooth and nail to protect the solicitors' monopoly of conveyancing but eventually compromised by not objecting to licensed conveyancers.
fight tooth and nail (for sth)/fight sth tooth and nail
hit the nail on the head
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If Jack had been trying to find a way to impress Polly he had hit the nail on the head.
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My friend, you have hit the nail on the head.
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She might dislike Piers Morrison, but he had a knack of hitting the nail on the head.
paint/nail varnish/stain etc remover
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If they are undamaged remove the polish with nail varnish remover .
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
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Nurse Duckett sat buffing her nails.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
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Always use a base coat to even out the nail surface and to prevent dark polishes staining.
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His Dad kept it hanging on a nail in the shed and he'd have noticed right away if it was missing.
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I took something from the land and buildings, pieces of bottles and some nails.
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Police Minister Avigdor Kahalani said the explosives were pipe bombs packed with nails.
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She came again, her body wracked with spasms, her nails tearing into his arms.
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The deeply incised DE/ED made with a red-hot nail was visible for anyone to see.
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There will be skin and blood under the nails.
II. verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
down
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We have nailed down the lid on the recession.
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Mayer, the mapmaker, worked in Nuremberg, nailing down precise coordinates for the productions of the Homann Cartographic Bureau.
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Any attempt to nail down individuals with the aid of rules and collective values seems doomed to vague and complex generalities.
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But representatives of both sides said, and independent analysts agreed, that the Hebron deal itself is virtually nailed down .
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In principle, the techniques were now established by which other antibacterial substances could be nailed down .
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Laughter, he says, serves some primitive social function, not yet nailed down .
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It showed a coffin with the lid nailed down and two candles burning at the head.
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If it wasn't nailed down , they took it.
up
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Voice over For the time being, he's nailed up the back door, just in case anyone feels like trying again.
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Second, you could nail up corner blocks, those square blocks of pine with a an embossed circle in the middle.
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The door to the servants' quarters in the attics had been nailed up .
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While we were nailing up that big front door, these guys were sneaking in around the back.
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Inside, the door to the North Bedroom had been nailed up , to prevent anyone from wandering in there by accident.
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Then he nailed up the shed door.
■ NOUN
cross
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As like a man nailed to a cross in a place called Golgotha.
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He set this aside, nailing it to the cross .
place
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But a theater is nailed in place , this one on the northeast corner of F Street and Third Avenue.
tooth
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They fought tooth and nail to protect the solicitors' monopoly of conveyancing but eventually compromised by not objecting to licensed conveyancers.
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He would also fight tooth and nail to keep her from the likes of Tommy Allen.
wall
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Poverty hung about the place like they'd framed it and nailed it to the walls .
■ VERB
fight
▪
They fought tooth and nail to protect the solicitors' monopoly of conveyancing but eventually compromised by not objecting to licensed conveyancers.
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He would also fight tooth and nail to keep her from the likes of Tommy Allen.
try
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Just try to nail it down.
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They may try to nail it on the perch again but nobody will believe it is still alive.
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Keeping his mind steadied was like trying to nail a raindrop to the wall.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
(as) hard as nails
▪
Hard as nails he may be but don't let anyone tell you Hank hasn't got a sense of humour.
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Beautiful but hard as nails, she'd thought then.
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Willie O'Connor is as hard as nails and Liam Simpson takes no prisoners.
fight tooth and nail
▪
We had to fight tooth and nail to get the government to admit they were wrong.
▪
He fought tooth and nail for 15 months before going to sleep one final night last week.
▪
He would also fight tooth and nail to keep her from the likes of Tommy Allen.
▪
Legislation aimed at forcing the power firms to clean up their act is being fought tooth and nail by the polluters.
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They fought tooth and nail through an initial series of leagues and finished in seven knockout matches.
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They fought tooth and nail to protect the solicitors' monopoly of conveyancing but eventually compromised by not objecting to licensed conveyancers.
paint/nail varnish/stain etc remover
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If they are undamaged remove the polish with nail varnish remover .
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
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A large American flag is nailed to the wall above the bed.
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Boitano nailed a superb triple axel jump.
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I got a hammer and nailed down the floorboards.
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Myers was nailed for selling marijuana.
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Police use radar to nail speeding drivers.
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Someone nailed the kitchen cabinets shut.
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The desks in all the classrooms were nailed to the floor.
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The windows had been nailed shut.
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We watched as Dad nailed the fence panels together.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
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For their sins, they were both nailed and all but crucified on the reef.
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Landry said his radar gun had nailed Soares going 82 m. p. h. on I-93.
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She nails the quips and finds extra laughs between the lines.
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So how did we nail the opportunist without resorting to high-level warfare?
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The door to the servants' quarters in the attics had been nailed up.
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These need to be screwed or nailed to the floorboards below.