hammer
verb
- put a nail into wood (eg)
- hit with a hammer
- use a hammer to put something into a particular shape
noun
- tool to provide an impact, e.g., for entering a nail into wood
- Part of the firing mechanism on some firearms
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈhæmə/ / /ˈhamə/ / /ˈhæmɚ/
name
Etymology: Shortened West Ham + -er, with a pun on hammer.
- A surname.
noun
Etymology: Shortened West Ham + -er, with a pun on hammer.
- someone connected with West Ham Football Club, as a fan, player, coach etc.
verb
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.
- To strike repeatedly with a hammer, some other implement, the fist, etc.
“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.”
- To form or forge with a hammer; to shape by beating.
“hammered money”
- To emphasize a point repeatedly.
- To hit particularly hard.
“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.”
“"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."”
- To ride very fast.
“Fifteen minutes later, leaving a vapour trail of kitchen smells, I hammered into Obterre.”
“Running at line-speed, well over 100mph, it hammers through Doncaster on its way south to London.”
- To strike internally, as if hit by a hammer.
“I could hear the engine’s valves hammering once the timing rod was thrown.”
- To defeat (a person, a team) resoundingly.
“We hammered them 5-0!”
- To make high demands on (a system or service).
“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, […]”
- To declare (a person) a defaulter on the stock exchange.
- To beat down the price of (a stock), or depress (a market).
- To have hard sex with.
“A short time later I’ve got Lissie in bed. I’m really going after it, really hammering her.”