"hangnail": an eighteenth-century eggcorn

[Mark Mandel]

This is the latest version of a word that's been around, and mutating, at
least since the 10th century. The OED says:

>>>>>

hang-nail
 [f. HANG v. + NAIL; but historically an accommodated form of angnail; cf.
AGNAIL 3.]
    A small piece of epidermis partially detached, but hanging by one end,
near to a nail.

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Their etymology of "agnail" (defs below) starts with the delicious peeve "A
word of which the application (and perhaps the form) has been much perverted
by pseudo-etymology". In Old and Middle English (1) it meant 'a corn on the
toe or foot', the "nail" part having "the sense, not of 'finger-nail,'
unguis, but of a nail (of iron, etc.) clavus, hence, a hard round-headed
excrescence fixed in the flesh". But at least by the late 1500s (2) it had
gotten associated with finger- and toenails, and from there it was got
eggcorned (3) into its present pronunciation and meaning.

>>>>>

agnail
    1. A corn on the toe or foot. Obs.

    2. Any 'painful swelling,' 'ulcer,' or 'sore,' under, about, around the
toe- or finger-nail; in J. and subseq. Dicts. identified with whitlow. [This
change of explanation seems due to pseudo-etymology; whether confusion with
Fr. angonailles 'botches, (pocky) bumps, or sores', or med.L. anghiones,
anguinalia 'carbuncles' contributed the 'ulcers' or 'sores' is uncertain;
but -nail, misinterpreted, fixed the locality. The further identification
with whitlow (in the Dicts.) seems due to collating the Gr. name of the
latter paronukhia (f. parh 'beside' + onykh- 'nail') with ag-nail (quasi ag-
'at' + nail). Ash explains agnail as 'a whitlow, paronychia,' and paronychia
as 'a perpetual sore under the root of the nail, a whitlow.']

    3. A 'hang-nail'; see quot. [Hang-nail, given by Halliwell as a dialect
word, is evidently like the Sc. equivalent anger-nail (ANGER = irritation,
inflammation), a corruption of ang-nail, putting a plausible meaning into
it. That is, ang-nail, dialectally pronounced hang-nail, was explained as
'hanging' or detached nail. This explanation of agnail appears first in
Bailey 1737 (ed. 1736 having only sense 2); the form hang-nail is in Craig
1847, and is now commoner in London than agnail.]

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m a m

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