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Glite Dictionary
nail pulling

nail pulling

9.9
Removing someone's fingernails or toenails to cause a lot of pain
  • noun
  • Offensive
translation icon : arrancamiento de uñas
  • Survivors of nail pulling often suffer from lasting psychological trauma.

Examples

  • During the interrogation, the captors resorted to nail pulling to extract information from the prisoner.

  • You want to be the one to do the nail pulling?

    Blog text (24)

  • The victims of the regime endured horrific experiences, including nail pulling as a form of torture.

Synonyms

nail removal
vsnail pulling
  • Offensive
9.9

Taking out a person's fingernails or toenails to hurt them during torture

has identical meaning but is phrased with a different wording

How Severe

nail pulling
  • Offensive
9.9
avulsion
  • NSFW
1 9.9
onycholysis
  • Specialized
9.9

Surface Forms

nail pulling singular
nail pullings plural

Morphology

nail + pulling

The meaning is directly and literally composed from 'nail' (a fingernail or toenail) and 'pulling' (the act of exerting force to remove or draw something), so a learner can infer it refers to forcibly removing nails. This is a straightforward action noun and follows common compositional patterns, making it readily understandable to a B1 learner who knows the constituent words.

Etymology

Nail pulling comes from the terrible, literal image of someone grabbing a person's nail and pulling it out to cause pain. That's why the term means 'a form of torture' today.