ingrown toenail
1
4.5
- noun
- /ˈɪŋˌɡroʊn ˈtoʊneɪl/
:
uña encarnada
- Poultice for an ingrown toenail, herbal tea for a headache, that kind of thing.
Then there's always crabs and ingrown toenails and people who insist they're your friends.
- Then there's always crabs and ingrown toenails and people who insist they're your friends.
Examples
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Before Minara can look up from his chart, I blurt, "Has anyone ever died from an ingrown toenail?"
Blog text (10) -
Correct me if l'm wrong, Doc, but we haven't been treating anything more serious than an ingrown toenail.
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I think he talked about, like, an ingrown toenail or something.
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I've got an ingrown toenail, but, Emily...
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Even now, with my big toe painfully swollen from an infected ingrown toenail, I'd rather be sedentary forever than be prodded by a podiatrist.
Blog text (10) -
She went to the doctor because her ingrown toenail was causing her a lot of pain.
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After trimming his nails too short, he developed an ingrown toenail that became quite infected.
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To prevent an ingrown toenail, it is important to cut your toenails straight across.
Synonyms
The edge of a toenail grows into the skin and hurts
How Severe
- Specialized
23
7.5
1
4.5
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'ingrown' (growing into the skin) combined with 'toenail' (the nail on a toe) yields a nail that grows into surrounding flesh. This follows common morphological and medical naming patterns (seen in many languages), so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
The noun ingrown toenail describes when a toenail has ingrown into the soft skin beside the toe, so the nail digs in and causes 'pain' and 'redness'. That's why the name shows the nail has 'grown in' to the flesh, not out, and it refers to that painful, swollen condition.