hammer

Bobby used a hammer and nails to fix the two planks together

A tool with a heavy head and a handle used for pounding.

The nail is too loose—give it a hammer.

The act of using a hammer to hit something.

(anatomy) The malleus, a small bone of the middle ear.

The sound the piano makes comes from the hammers striking the strings

(music) In a piano or dulcimer, a piece of wood covered in felt that strikes the string.

(sports) A device made of a heavy steel ball attached to a length of wire, and used for throwing.

(frisbee) A frisbee throwing style in which the disc is held upside-down with a forehand grip and thrown above the head.

Part of a clock that strikes upon a bell to indicate the hour.

St. Augustine was the hammer of heresies.

He met the stern legionaries [of Rome] who had been the massive iron hammers of the whole earth.

1849, John Henry Newman, Discourses to Mixed Congregations:

One who, or that which, smites or shatters.

Hammers are, in essence, reverse kickers. Instead of being set in smaller type like kickers, hammers are set in larger type than headlines.

1981, Harry W. Stonecipher, Edward C. Nicholls, Douglas A. Anderson, Electronic Age News Editing, page 104:

(journalism) Ellipsis of hammer headline.

We is headin' for bear on I-one-oh
'Bout a mile outta Shaky Town.
I says, "Pig Pen, this here's the Rubber Duck
And I'm about to put the hammer down."

1975, “Convoy”, in C.W. McCall, Chip Davis (lyrics), Black Bear Road, performed by C. W. McCall:

Nonstop hammer cock, violent mannered shots land a lot

2016, Doseone (lyrics and music), “Enter the Gungeon”, in Enter the Gungeon OST:

In the course of a single month this year, the following news reports emanated from Florida: A gun enthusiast in Tampa built a 55-foot backyard pool shaped like a revolver, with a hot tub in the hammer.

2023 March 27, Helen Lewis, “How Did America’s Weirdest, Most Freedom-Obsessed State Fall for an Authoritarian Governor?”, in The Atlantic:

(firearms) A moving part of a firearm that strikes the firing pin to discharge a gun.

Another one of my peoples came to me with a plan. "Yo, man, I need to get some money. I need to borrow that hammer." So I gave him my nickel-plated .357 with a wooden handle, and off he went to stand by the weed spot.

2018, U-God [Lamont Hawkins], Raw: My Journey Into The Wu-Tang, New York, N.Y.: Picador, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 119:

(African-American Vernacular, slang, loosely) A handgun.

hamer

bone of the middle ear — see also malleus

From Middle English hamer, from Old English hamor, from Proto-West Germanic *hamar, from Proto-Germanic *hamaraz (“tool with a stone head”) (compare West Frisian hammer, Low German Hamer, Dutch hamer, German Hammer, Danish hammer, Swedish hammare). This is traditionally ascribed to Proto-Indo-European *h₂eḱmoros, from *h₂éḱmō (“stone”), but see *hamaraz for further discussion.
(declare a defaulter on the stock exchange): Originally signalled by knocking with a wooden mallet.


hammer

Tony hammered on the door to try to get him to open.

Fresleven - that was the fellow’s name, a Dane - thought himself wronged somehow in the bargain, so he went ashore and started to hammer the chief of the village with a stick.

1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 198:

"He's been waiting to jump my brain-bones since I left R&E. I could feel him hammering on the door." She trotted to the nearest wall and knocked on it for emphasis. "But whatever it is that makes us remember the good old days, it also makes us impossible to possess now. That's why Willie and I both woke up, and why Noè never got taken out by Mukami. So all I had to do was open my mind up to the guy, invite him in, then... gas the foyer, as it were."

2023 October 14, HarryBlank, “Face Time”, in SCP Foundation, archived from the original on 2024-05-23:

To strike repeatedly with a hammer, some other implement, the fist, etc.

hammered money

1697, Virgil, translated by John Dryden, The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:

To form or forge with a hammer; to shape by beating.

(figuratively) To emphasize a point repeatedly.

This time the defender was teed up by Andrew Johnson's short free-kick on the edge of the box and Baird hammered his low drive beyond Begovic's outstretched left arm and into the bottom corner, doubling his goal tally for the season and stunning the home crowd.

2010 December 28, Marc Vesty, “Stoke 0 - 2 Fulham”, in BBC:

"My memory of him in the office at Peterborough was the ferocious nature of his typing, on a manual machine of course. This was long before the days of desktop publishing, and you could hear him down the corridor absolutely hammering the keyboard."

2023 January 25, Howard Johnston, “Peter Kelly: August 2 1944-December 28 2022”, in RAIL, number 975, page 47:

(sports, etc.) To hit particularly hard.

Fifteen minutes later, leaving a vapour trail of kitchen smells, I hammered into Obterre.

2011, Tim Moore, French Revolutions: Cycling the Tour de France, page 58:

Running at line-speed, well over 100mph, it hammers through Doncaster on its way south to London.

2019 December 18, Richard Clinnick, “Traction transition: HST to Azuma”, in Rail, page 32:

(cycling, intransitive, slang) To ride very fast.

I could hear the engine’s valves hammering once the timing rod was thrown.

(intransitive) To strike internally, as if hit by a hammer.

We hammered them 5-0!

(transitive, slang, figuratively, sports) To defeat (a person, a team) resoundingly.

So we'll be hammering the server in an unrealistic manner, but we'll see how the additional clients affect overall performance. We'll add two, three, four, and then five clients, […]

1995, Optimizing Windows NT, volume 4, page 226:

(transitive, slang, computing) To make high demands on (a system or service).

(transitive, finance) To declare (a person) a defaulter on the stock exchange.

(transitive, finance) To beat down the price of (a stock), or depress (a market).

A short time later I’ve got Lissie in bed. I’m really going after it, really hammering her.

2012, John Locke, Wish List (Donovan Creed), John Locke Books, →ISBN, page 19:

(sex, transitive, colloquial) To have hard sex with.

en-verb

hammer (third-person singular simple present hammers, present participle hammering, simple past and past participle hammered)

hammers (present singular third-person)
hammering (participle present)
hammered (participle past)
hammered (past)

the nail that sticks out gets hammered down

op hamer

figuratively: to emphasize a point repeatedly

hakata

to strike internally, as if hit by a hammer