A hangnail or agnail is a small, torn piece of skin on a fingernail or toenail. Unlike whitlows, hangnails are usually caused by dry skin or (in the case of fingernails) nail biting, and may be prevented with proper moisturization of the skin.
When attempting to remove a hangnail, additional skin may be painfully ripped off of its attachment if not broken properly. This may lead to a painful infection called paronychia. Therefore, hangnails should usually be cut using nail scissors or a nail clipper; biting or pulling them frequently makes them worse. People with a hangnail should be careful to cut it all off and rub hand lotion into the cuticles two to three times a day.[1]
The term "hangnail" can be misleading, as a hangnail is not an actual part of the nail. It is dead, dried skin, not nail, the latter being mostly made up of keratin, a tough fibrous protein. It can, however, also include a bit of nail, hanging loose from the rest of the body of the nail, attached to the nail bed. If the hangnail is nail and not skin, it is often necessary to rip it out from the nail bed because cutting it will allow it to grow back, although pain and infection are possible.