Where did the term 'dead as a doornail' or 'dead as a doormouse' come from?

monkeycouzin

One possible explanation is at http://www.briggs13.fsnet.co.uk/book/d.htm Aug 31 02, 9:28 PM

Friar Tuck

Dead as a doornail is an expression most of us learned first in Dickens's A Christmas Carol. Actually, it's much older than that, having appeared in the fourteenth-century Vision of Piers Plowman and in Shakespeare's Henry IV. The dictionary defines a doornail as 'a large-headed nail, easily clinched, for nailing doors, through the battens.' Now the 'clinching' makes the nail 'dead'. It cannot be easily withdrawn. 'Dead-nailing' is a term most any carpenter is familiar with. It is a technique frequently used in constructing doors for log cabins, construction shanties and the like - and it antedates the ready availability of screws and more sophisticated fastening devices. http://pages.ca.inter.net/~jennyb/lasto4.html Sep 01 02, 12:21 AM