big toe-nail

plural big toe-nails

1. alternativeAlternative form of big toenail.

   [H]e [John Hooper] had also one of his big toe-nails crushed off, and it had been replaced by a very thick, clumsy one.

   1831 August 2, “Suspected Murder Near Bolton, and Singular Exhumation”, in Kent & Essex Mercury, number 458, London: […] Matthias Gibbon, […], →OCLC, page [3], column 5

   3 more examples

   Now a woman isn’t usually so particular about her husband’s feet as to notice whether the little toe-nail or the big toe-nail is gone, or whether the lapping of the toes includes and covers a deformity or not, […]

   1876 March 25, “About a Body. Complaints from the Friends of Captain [Thomas A.] Hamlin. […]”, in Brooklyn Daily Union, volume XIII, number 166, Brooklyn, N.Y., →OCLC, page [3], column 1

   A 39-year-old reader wants to bare her feet and wear flip-flops on her holiday to Greece, but is self-conscious about her thickened and yellow big toe-nails. […] Usually the first toes to be infected are the big toes, because they are the ones most likely to bang against the inside of the toe cap.

   2008 August 8, Thomas Stuttaford, “Holiday fungus hits the nails on the foot”, in The Times, London: News UK, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 07 Sep 2025

   He [Maurice Tate] missed most of one Test, a match England narrowly lost, after his big toe-nail was ripped off as he stamped down on the hard ground in his action, leaving his toe infected, but he was back playing the next Test a week later.

   2010 October 19, Stephen Bates, “Maurice Tate was a true Ashes hero but now weeds claim his grave”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 06 Nov 2020