Meaning & Analysis
To trim one's fingernails, or metaphorically, to diminish the power or threat of oneself or someone dangerous—often referring to taming or restraining the devil.
Insights
Restraint of Evil
Symbolizes curbing malevolent power or influence—'paring the devil's nails' suggests rendering an evil force harmless by removing its capacity to do harm.
Limitation of Authority
Represents the act of reducing someone's reach, strength, or dominance—whether political, moral, or social—by figuratively 'trimming back' their power.
Self-Discipline
When reflexively applied, the proverb can denote efforts to control one's own baser instincts or impulses—paring the 'devil' within.
Medieval and Renaissance Demonology
The image of 'paring the devil’s nails' invokes folk depictions of the devil as a clawed creature of chaos. Trimming those claws symbolized reducing evil’s grip—aligning with Christian notions of moral intervention and divine authority.
Political Allegory
Historical uses, such as 'paring the nails of the Censorship,' suggest how the phrase was adopted into political rhetoric—criticizing or reducing governmental or ecclesiastical power while cloaked in metaphor.
Satirical Force in Drama
In Shakespeare and Webster, the phrase often carries sardonic weight—portraying bravado, madness, or the mockery of evil by suggesting it has been domesticated or made ridiculous (e.g., with wooden daggers or raven’s eggs).
Rhetorical Devices
Metaphor
The act of nail-paring becomes a metaphor for neutralizing or disarming a threat, turning physical grooming into a symbolic act of moral or political correction.
Irony
The phrase often carries an ironic twist—suggesting the absurdity of powerful forces being reduced by comically small or domestic acts.
Allusion
References to the devil and trimming claws draw on deep religious and folkloric symbolism, enriching the phrase with layered associations of sin, punishment, and control.
Transcription
Quotations
I wyll follow myne owne mynd and myn old trade. Who shal let me, the Deuyls nayles vnpared.
God must needes paire the nailes, as well of vs men as women.
Moreover the Lords of the Senat, albeit they were willing enough that the Censorship nailes should be pared and their power taken downe.
I have paired the divells nayles forty times, roasted them in Ravens egges.
To keep the wings clipt; the English say, to pare ones nails.
Shakespeare Citations
Bardolph and Nym had ten times more valour than this roaring devil i’ th’ old play that every one may pare his nails with a wooden dagger.
Like a mad lad, ‘Pare thy nails, dad.’
Cross References
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
Used under CC BY-NC 3.0.