tenpenny nail

plural tenpenny nails · alternative ten penny nail · alternative ten-penny nail

1. datedA relatively large nail, three inches (7.62 centimeters) in length.

   "Al, I could bite a tenpenny nail in half and digest both pieces, too."

   1909, Joseph A. Altsheler, chapter 3, in The Last of the Chiefs

   2 more examples

   The face, horribly seared by the frequent application of the red-hot poker, and further ornamented by the insertion, in the tip of the nose, of a tenpenny nail, yet smiled blandly in its less lacerated parts.

   1841, Charles Dickens, chapter 67, in The Old Curiosity Shop

   He could still climb a scaffold like a monkey, still drive a ten-penny nail with one measured, massive, dead-on blow.

   2001 August 26, Fred Chappell, “He was a man, not a super-rube”, in Chicago Sun-Times, (review of Ava's Man by Rick Bragg), page 16C