Treenail

//ˈtɹiːˌneɪl// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A wooden peg or pin used as a fastener.

    "Long treenails were quite difficult to drive, often being damaged in the process, with ends becoming "broomed", or worse, split, necessitating the head being trimmed, or far worse, the removal of the treenail."

  2. 2
    a wooden peg that is used to fasten timbers in shipbuilding; water causes the peg to swell and hold the timbers fast wordnet

Example

More examples

"Long treenails were quite difficult to drive, often being damaged in the process, with ends becoming "broomed", or worse, split, necessitating the head being trimmed, or far worse, the removal of the treenail."

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English trenayl; equivalent to tree + nail.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.