tooth-and-nail
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Detailed reference entry for the English word "tooth-and-nail", 14-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Wiktionary, and usage frequency ranked against an open word-frequency list covering the top 100,000 English words. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "tooth-and-nail" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "tooth-and-nail" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
The verdict
“tooth and nail” is outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as an adverb — the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 14
- letters
Dominant Wiktionary sense: Viciously; with all one's strength or power; without holding back.
Compare similar words
See how tooth and nail compares against similar English words.
Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tooth and nail |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| Letters | 14 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “tooth and nail” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for tooth and nail is 14 letters long, classified as an adverb. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Viciously; with all one's strength or power; without holding back.".
No misspelling variants are generated for tooth and nail in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From the Middle English phrase (with) nayles and teþ (“viciously, ferociously”, literally “(with) nails and teeth”). Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is tooth and nail, spelled T-O-O-T-H- -A-N-D- -N-A-I-L, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Viciously; with all one's strength or power; without holding back.
Etymology
From the Middle English phrase (with) nayles and teþ (“viciously, ferociously”, literally “(with) nails and teeth”).
This word in other languages
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “tooth and nail”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is T-O-O-T-H- -A-N-D- -N-A-I-L — every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter T in our English index: