A nail is a functional fastener for attaching one thing to another, eg plasterboard to timber framing or a sign to a post. The act of doing this is described by the verb 'nailing'.

Generally, nails have a shaft with two ends. One end is pointed and the other has a flattened boss (usually called the ‘head’) that is hit with an implement such as a hammer to force the point into a material and so form a fixing. In the past, nails were generally made of iron; today they are mostly steel, although copper varieties are also available. The nail’s shaft may be smooth or ribbed for applications that require greater grip in the substrate material.

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