Used to describe an ongoing action or continuous state that was happening at a specific time in the past.
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
While Tremaine, Duncan and Quinn were nailing down the theoretical case for the Kuiper belt, Jewitt and Jane X. Luu, then his student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, began looking for hard evidence.
From Scientific American ● Oct. 15, 2014
Upon the roof of the balcony was maintained an evenly sonorous monotone of drubbing, as if innumerable fairy carpenters were nailing on the shingles.
From Bressant by Julian Hawthorne
At last the doctor came on them suddenly, just as they were nailing him up again in his box.
From Bouvard and Pécuchet A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life by Gustave Flaubert
Jerry and the mate were nailing some boards on the companion hatch to keep out the snow from the cabin.
From The Pilots of Pomona by Robert Leighton
And then followed a series of dull thuds, as if they were nailing down a coffin-lid, and Ráby shuddered, but not this time with the cold.
From The Strange Story of Rab R?by by M?r J?kai
