Extremely strong, durable, or resilient; able to endure hardship or difficulty without giving up.
This phrase emerged in the early 1800s, referring to the hardness and durability of iron nails. Before modern construction materials, nails represented some of the toughest, most reliable hardware available.
The genius of this metaphor is that nails are designed to be hammered repeatedly and still hold things together - perfectly capturing human resilience under pressure. Interestingly, the phrase gained popularity during the Industrial Revolution when mass-produced nails became symbols of reliable strength.
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