hammer
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈhæm.ə(ɹ)/
rhymes: -æmə(ɹ)
ipa: /ˈhæm.ɚ/
Forms: form: hammers
form: hammering
form: hammered
form: hammered
Etymology: 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.
Senses: examples: text: Tony hammered on the door to try to get him to open.
text: 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.
ref: 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:
text: "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."
ref: 2023 October 14, HarryBlank, “Face Time”, in SCP Foundation, archived from the original on 23 May 2024:
glosses: To strike repeatedly with a hammer, some other implement, the fist, etc.
examples: text: hammered money
ref: 1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
glosses: To form or forge with a hammer; to shape by beating.
glosses: To emphasize a point repeatedly.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 2010 December 28, Marc Vesty, “Stoke 0 - 2 Fulham”, in BBC:
text: "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."
ref: 2023 January 25, Howard Johnston, “Peter Kelly: August 2 1944-December 28 2022”, in RAIL, number 975, page 47:
topics: hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: To hit particularly hard.
examples: text: Fifteen minutes later, leaving a vapour trail of kitchen smells, I hammered into Obterre.
ref: 2011, Tim Moore, French Revolutions: Cycling the Tour de France, page 58:
text: Running at line-speed, well over 100mph, it hammers through Doncaster on its way south to London.
ref: 2019 December 18, Richard Clinnick, “Traction transition: HST to Azuma”, in Rail, page 32:
topics: cycling
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: To ride very fast.
examples: text: I could hear the engine’s valves hammering once the timing rod was thrown.
glosses: To strike internally, as if hit by a hammer.
examples: text: We hammered them 5-0!
topics: hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: To defeat (a person, a team) resoundingly.
examples: text: 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, […]
ref: 1995, Optimizing Windows NT, volume 4, page 226:
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: To make high demands on (a system or service).
topics: business
finance
glosses: To declare (a person) a defaulter on the stock exchange.
topics: business
finance
glosses: To beat down the price of (a stock), or depress (a market).
examples: text: A short time later I’ve got Lissie in bed. I’m really going after it, really hammering her.
ref: 2012, John Locke, Wish List (Donovan Creed), John Locke Books, →ISBN, page 19:
topics: lifestyle
sex
sexuality
synonyms: pound
smash
glosses: To have hard sex with.
Derived terms: sense: terms derived from hammer (verb)
word: hammerable
sense: terms derived from hammer (verb)
word: hammered
sense: terms derived from hammer (verb)
word: hammerer
sense: terms derived from hammer (verb)
word: hammer home
sense: terms derived from hammer (verb)
word: hammer out
sense: terms derived from hammer (verb)
word: hammer up
sense: terms derived from hammer (verb)
word: mishammer
sense: terms derived from hammer (verb)
word: outhammer
sense: terms derived from hammer (verb)
word: rehammer
sense: terms derived from hammer (verb)
word: sledgehammer
sense: terms derived from hammer (verb)
word: the nail that sticks out gets hammered down
Related terms: hammer out