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PlainSpell

fingernail

/ˈfɪŋɡɚˌneɪl/noun

fingernail is a noun meaning “The hard, flat translucent covering near the tip of a human finger, useful for scratching and fine manipulation” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-I-N-G-E-R-N-A-I-L and has 3 syllables, and it appears about once in every 2 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of fingernail is fingernails.

What does fingernail mean?

noun

  1. 1

    The hard, flat translucent covering near the tip of a human finger, useful for scratching and fine manipulation.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce fingernail?

  • US /ˈfɪŋɡɚˌneɪl/

Fingernail has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-fingernail.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Back_ache-fingernail.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of fingernail

  • fingernails plural
  • finger nail
  • finger-nail

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is fingernail?

Fingernail appears about once in every 2 million words in written English, the 40,267th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Words people confuse with fingernail

Also written: finger-nail (one word or two).

Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

Fingernail in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense covering near the tip of finger:

LanguageWords
Frenchongle, ongle de main
GermanFingernagel
Portugueseunha
Spanishuña, uña de dedo, uña de mano, uña dactilar, quirouña

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does fingernail come from?

From Middle English finger neil(e); equivalent to finger + nail. Compare Middle English nayl of fynger (“fingernail”) and Old English handnæġl (“fingernail”). Compare also Saterland Frisian Fingernail (“fingernail”), West Frisian fingerneil (“fingernail”), Dutch vingernagel (“fingernail”), German Fingernagel (“fingernail”), Danish fingernegl (“fingernail”), Swedish fingernagel (“fingernail”), Norwegian fingernegl (“fingernail”), Icelandic fingurnögl (“fingernail”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).