Green’s Dictionary of Slang

see down as a hammer/nail/trippet under down adv.²

a drink of liquor; thus the invitation to drink, let’s put another nail in our coffins, let’s drive another nail...

1821		Egan Life in London (1869) 267: [note] A glass of spirits is termed, among the wet ones, adding ‘another nail to the coffin’.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. 185: “Nail in one’s coffin” a dram, “a drop o’ sumat’ short,” a jocular, but disrespectful phrase, used by the lower orders to each other at the moment of lifting a glass of spirits to their lips. “Well, good luck! here’s another nail in my coffin.”.
1873		Sl. Dict. [as prev.] [...] This is probably in ridicule of teetotal or temperance preachers, and the arguments adduced by them.
1891		Morn. Post (London) 18 Feb. 2/3: American invitations to drink [...] ‘Let’s drive another nail,’ ‘what’s your medicine?’.

1. (mid-19C) to make a costly and/or painful error, to ‘bite off more than one can chew’ [one may fig. prick one’s own finger].

1868

Sportsman 5 Nov. 2/1: Notes on News [...] It is said that O’Baldwin is rather of the Noah Claypole order, and on the ‘kinchin lay;’ [i.e. robbing children in the street] but this time, to use an expressive phrase, ‘picked up nail’.

2. (W.I.) to contract venereal disease [the sharp pain in the penis when urinating].

1974

cited in Allsopp Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage (1996).

to drink heavily, to get drunk.

1821		Egan Life in London (1869) 267: [note] A glass of spirits is termed, among the wet ones, adding ‘another nail to the coffin’.
1836		Fonblanque Eng. Under Seven Adm. (1837) III 321: A dram which ... drives nails into the victim’s coffin [F&H].
1933		‘William Juniper’ True Drunkard’s Delight 227: Perhaps the invitation was to put another nail in his coffin.

(US) a carpenter, a blacksmith.

1924		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. 118: Listening to a pair of nail benders as they pull off their daily razz.
1947		Grant Angel and Badman [film] You dimwitted nail-bender! Why don’t you marry that girl? [HDAS].
1996, 1997		‘Construction Jargon’ Construction Site 🌐 Nail Bender: Carpenter.

see bite v.

(Aus.) a top hat.

1879		Wagga Wagga Advertiser (NSW) 9 Apr. 3/3: Now-a-days we are not so particular as to the matter of dress, though most gents prefer being present in a white vest, a nail-can hat, or a claw-hammer coat.
1888		Bulletin (Sydney) 14 July 13/2: [H]is glossy top hat came in contact with the front of the hansom and was knocked off [...] scattering in its fatal flight a very murky collar and a pair of socks, which bad been nicely stowed away in the crown of what vulgar little boys call his ‘nail-can’.
1895		Newcastle Morn. Herald (NSW) 26 Nov. 5/5: [T]he sight of the Post master-General (once the leader of the Labour party) in a silk top-hat was such a sight for the gods that the latter made several reflecting remarks upon Mr. Cook’s now headgear, which he wore for the first time publicly [...] until someone remarked, ‘You’re a nice kind of Labour member in a nail can!’ .
1914		Dly News (Perth) 9 Jan. 10/6: For the nail-can decoration / Is, you see, an indication / Of a grim determination.
1934		Dly Teleg. (Sydney) 17 July 6/4: That the topper has remained with us so long is probably due to our sentimental longing for the great past, when [...] cricket, [...] was such a quiet game that gentlemen played it in glossy nail-can hats.
1954		Nat. Advocate (Bathurst) 11 Feb. 4/1: [T]he old boys [...] dressed in what they thought was an aristocratic manner, consisting of a nail-can hat, hip-walloper coat, walking cane and mighty big ‘Bogan scrub’ beard.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 236/1: nail can – a top hat.

one who scours the streets in search of old nails and similar saleable pieces of lost or discarded metal.

1828		G. Smeeton Doings in London 126: There are also the grubbers, or nail-gropers; of these there are few indeed, Mr. M’Adam having nearly annihilated their trade: they procure a livelihood by whatever they can find in grubbing out the dirt from between the stones with a crooked bit of iron, in search of the nails that fall from horse-shoes.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.

(US) a top hat.

1869		‘Mark Twain’ Innocents Abroad 269: [Americans] wear a conical hat termed a ‘nail-kag’.
1909		Carr & Chase in ‘Word-List From Aroostook’ in DN III:v 414: nailkeg, n. A silk hat.

1. a stick of ‘Two Seas’ tobacco.

1894		H. Lawson ‘Drifted Back’ in Roderick (1972) 235: You can give me half-a-pound of nailrod.
1900–01		H. Lawson ‘A Bush Publican’s Lament’ in Roderick (1972) 467: ‘Nail-rod’ is ninepence a stick out here, an’ I have ter pay carriage.

2. any dark tobacco.

1898

E.E. Morris Austral Eng. 313/1: Nailrod, n. a coarse dark tobacco smoked by bushmen. The name alludes to the shape of the plug, which looks like a thin flat stick of liquorice. It is properly applied to the imported brand of ‘Two Seas,’ but is indiscriminately used by up-country folk for any coarse stick of tobacco.

to do something foolish.

1738

Swift Polite Conversation 10: You should be cut for the Simples this Morning. Say a Word more, and you had as good as eat your Nails.

(US) to make an unclear, misleading statement.

1955

B. Schulberg On the Waterfront (1964) 258: There was no use giving Johnny Friendly any bent nails for answers.

(Ulster/Scot.) to become confused or flustered.

1721		J. Kelly Collection of Scot. Proverbs 173: He is gone off at the Nail. Taken from Scissors when the sides go asunder, means that he is gone out of all bounds of Reason.
1787		J. Elphinston Propriety Ascertained II 119: But I dread he’l gae af at the nail wih hemsal: I wos he mayna saw aw staps, or gang a gray gat.
1822		J. Galt Sir Andrew Wylie II 135: I see ye’re terrified, and think I’m going off at the nail.
1897		W. Beatty Secretar xlix: That woman’s aff at the nail.
1902		J.J. Bell Wee Macgreegor ii: Ye’re fair aff at the nail the day!
1953		M. Traynor Eng. Dial. Donegal 193: To go off at the nail, to become flustered, confused.
1997		Share Slanguage.

tipsy, slightly drunk.

1822

Steamboat 300: When I went up again intil the bedroom, I was what you would call a thought off the nail; by the which my sleep wasna just what it should have been [F&H].

immediately.

1746

W. Dunkin Parson’s Revels (2010) 83: I would pay him o’er the Nail.