Meanings
present singular third person misnails · participle present misnailing · participle past misnailed · past misnailed
- To nail improperly.
We should have quit when we misnailed that joist. It was time.
2001, Hugh Howard, House-Dreams, page 1223 more examples
Easy to handle and apply — light weight — small size , 18 " x 48 " — can not be misnailed because nailing grooves are already provided.
1931, American Lumberman - Part 3, page 48There is better nailing visibility of the individual framing members when boards rather than large sheeets are applied as sheathing, i.e., there is less chance of misnailing and the carpenter saves time in locating the framing members when starting the nails into the sheathing.
1941, National Lumber Manufacturers Association, A Manual on Sheathing for Buildings: Laboratory and Service Data, page 26He examined the unfinished framing of the annex, noted two misnailed and split pieces of cross-bridging between joists, walked around the front of the house where the porch had been and an unconcluded rubble of mud and hardened concrete splotches and dusty hundredweight paper bags and scraps of polythylene film and insulation wool now was, and, continuing, tapped on the side door, a door that seemed to press outward with the silence it contained.
2007, John Updike, Couples
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Cite this entry
misnail. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/misnail
“misnail.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/misnail. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “misnail,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/misnail.
Source: misnail on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.