In 1884 the “Pall Mall Gazette” opined that “The Congo treaty may now be regarded as being as dead as a doornail.” We still say “dead as a doornail” today, a century and a half later. But wait, “Piers Plowman” includes this bit: “Fey withouten fait is febelore þen nouȝt, And ded as a dore-nayl.” That’s from 1362. Doornails have evidently been the penultimate example of something dead for quite a long time indeed.
But why a doornail? There are plenty of other things with the same property — and if you’re looking for similar alliteration, why not “dead as a door?” Or for that matter, since “dead duck” is also a common expression, and also alliterative, why not “dead as a duck?”
In fact, for once, there’s an answer! It’s rooted in some bits of trivia, two of which are obsolete (the price of nails and the construction of doors). Let’s start with the nails, then we’ll proceed on to the doors. Nails today are so inexpensive you can’t even buy them one at a time in most hardware stores — or if you try to buy just one, they’ll probably just look at you strangely and give it to you. You buy nails by the box now. But this wasn’t always true; nails were once the product of hand crafting, and they were pretty expensive. They were reused as many times as possible. But if you drove a nail all the way through a board so the point showed, then hammered the point over so it couldn’t be pulled back out, that nail couldn’t be reused. It was “dead.”
Now, to the doors. If you visualize the heavy door to a medieval castle, it’s decorated with a pattern of large metal studs. Those were partly because of the way the door was made, and partly for greater protection. The studs were…wait for it…door nails. And guess what, their tips were hammered over, so they were “dead” nails.
So there you have it; any confusion about “dead as a doornail” is dead as a doornail.
