1663. Dryden, Wild Gallant, iv. A waiter's place at Custom-House, that had been worth to him an £100 a year upon the nail.
1733. Swift, On Poetry, [Works (1824), xiv., 334]. He pays his workmen on the nail.
1798. Colman (the Younger), Blue Devils, i. 1. I will make the proposal, pay down all the money that's wanted, on the nail.
1834. Ainsworth, Rookwood, 11., vi. A thousand pounds for his life. Upon the nail? asked Rust.
1845. Disraeli, Sybil. You shall have ten thousand pounds on the nail, and I will . . . teach you what is your fortune.
1859. Punch, xxxvii., 51, 1. I must have money now. I cannot wait. The word must be—fork out upon the nail.
1872. Braddon, Dead Sea Fruit, vii. He does a bad adaptation of a French vaudeville, and gets twenty pounds down on the nail for his labour.
1889. Century Dict., s.v. Nail (on the). This phrase is said to have originated in the custom of making payments, in the exchange of Bristol, England, and elsewhere on the top of a pillar called the nail.
1898. Braddon, Rough Justice, 38. And paid him half a sovereign for it on the nail.
To hit the nail (or the right nail) on the head (or to drive the nail home,) verb. phr. (colloquial).—To succeed; to come to the point. Fr. toucher au blanc (= to hit the white).
1574. Withals, Dict. (1608), 460. You hit the naile on the head, rem tenes.
1654. Witts Recreations [Nares]. Venus tels Vulcan, Mars shall shooe her steed, For he it is that hits the naile o' the head.
1670. Ray, Proverbs [Bohn], 165, s. v.
1675. Cotton, Scoffer Scofft [Wks. (1725), 151]. Ha! ha! old Smutty-face, well said, Th'ast hit the nail (i' faith) o'th' head.
1719. Durfey, Pills to Purge, iii., 21. The common proverb as it is read, That a man must hit the nail on the head.
1892. Illustrated Bits, 22 Oct., 6, 2. I have driven the nail home.
1897. Barrett, Harding Scandal, xiv. He must drive the nail home, and clench it on the other side, by leaving no doubt in the minds of Denise and Thrale.
1897. Kennard, Girl in Brown Habit, ii. "In other words," said I, with a broad smile, "he goes a-courting against his master's wishes and advice." Exactly; you've hit the right nail on the head.
To put (or drive) a nail in one's coffin, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To do anything that shortens life: specifically, to drink. Hence, as sub. = a drink.—Grose (1823).
1836. Fonblanque, Eng. Under Seven Adm. (1837), 111., 321. A dram which . . . drives nails into the victim's coffin, according to the expressive vulgar expression.
1874. M'Carthy, Linley Rockford. Every dinner eaten under such conditions is a nail driven into one's coffin.
1888. Fun, 4 April, 148. Silently they walked into the Gaiety bar just as though they were going to order a couple of coffins instead of only two more nails.
1897. Mitford, Romance of Cape Frontier, 1., iii. Every moment lost is a nail in his coffin.
2. (colloquial).—To hasten an end; to advance a business by a step.
1884. Ill. Lond. News, 29 Nov., 526, 3. The great value of 'The Candidate' to the contemporary stage is that it is one more nail in the coffin of slow acting.
1885. Society, 7 Feb., 8. This dispelling of the illusion of cheapness should prove a nail in the coffin of Co-*operative Stores.
1897. Daily Mail, 26 Oct., 4, 3. With the occupation of this important post another nail will be driven into the coffin of Dervish tyranny.
