Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Usage examples of "finger-nail".
Lady Blandish, pressing an almondy finger-nail to one of the Aphorisms, which instanced how age and adversity must clay-enclose us ere we can effectually resist the magnetism of any human creature in our path.
We can, indeed, grow butchers, bakers, and greengrocers, almost ad libitum, but these are low developments, and correspond to skin, hair, or finger-nails.
Bielschowsky records the case of a man with peripheral neuritis, in whom white spots appeared at the lower part of the finger-nails, grew rapidly, and in three weeks coalesced into a band across each nail a millimeter wide.
Then the lights started cracking like atomics and the boot or finger-nail or, as it might be, a bit of dirt on your trouser-bottom turned into a big big big mesto, bigger than the whole world, and you were just going to get introduced to old Bog or God when it was all over.
Small nose, nice mouth, lines, but the smiling sort, thin neck, short green cotton wrap, gold bangles and an amethyst ring, thin thighs, reddish knees, long, slender feet in thin-thong sandals, toe-nails as well as finger-nails painted cerise.
The quality of the scream had been of sudden, fully realized terror as the man fell, scrabbled at the ice with his finger-nails and boots, and then, as he gathered speed down the polished blue gully, the bunding horror of the truth.
By a man's finger-nails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boots, by his trouser-knees, by the callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his expression, by his shirtcuffs -- by each of these things a man's calling is plainly revealed.
But it was tight as a clam—and, what was worse, as I stood Plucking at it I began to make out little dints and tears in the dirty canvas— little crescents, where the weave was worn—that I understood all at once must be the marks left by the finger-nails of all the other lunatics—all the real lunatics, I mean—who had been put in that room before me.
If the person stealing the towel filed or cleaned his nails there will be evidence of the fibers on his pocket knife or finger-nail file.
Cracked finger-nail polish, third finger, left hand, and a devastating smile enhanced -- if, that is to say, that's possible -- by a slightly crooked left upper eye-tooth.
Dicky Lancome sat with the voice-piece of the telephone set on the desk in front of him and the ear-piece held loosely to his cheek, trapped there by a hunched shoulder while he trimmed his finger-nails with a gold-plated penknife.
He twisted round, saw the white blur of Schaffer's strained and desperate face, had a vague impression of Schaffer's eight finger-nails scoring their way through the ice as his body, already, up to mid-thigh, slid inexorably over the edge and brought his left hand flashing down with a speed and power that, even in those circumstances, made Schaffer grunt in pain as the vice-like grip clamped over his right wrist.