little toe-nail

plural little toe-nails

1. alternativeAlternative form of little toenail.

   The rocks as big as yours, are all solid gold—so solid that, as yet, they have never been broken to afford sordid ambition a piece as big as your little toe-nail; […]

   1849 March 7, “From the Sunday Mercury. Short Patent Sermon. […]”, in Chester Tuttle, editor, Luzerne Democrat. […], volume 3 (New Series), number 25 (215 overall), Wiles-Barre, Pa., →OCLC, front page, column 5

   2 more examples

   The other questions which have been proposed to both him and me, are—‘Will you vote for the ballot?’ ‘Will you vote for an extension of the suffrage?’ ‘Will you vote for shortening the duration of Parliaments?’ To all these he answered in the affirmative. But how absurd, I again exclaim, to ask the foot, say rather the little toe-nail or a pairing off it, what it will do? Why not ask the head? Ask Lord John Russell himself what he will do?

   1841 April 24, [John] Walter, quotee, “Nottingham Election”, in The Times, number 17,653, London, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 5, column 4

   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