hammer

Meaning

Noun

1. A tool with a heavy head and a handle used for pounding.
2. The act of using a hammer to hit something.
3. The malleus, a small bone of the middle ear.
4. In a piano or dulcimer, a piece of wood covered in felt that strikes the string.
5. A device made of a heavy steel ball attached to a length of wire, and used for throwing.
6. The last stone in an end.
7. A frisbee throwing style in which the disc is held upside-down with a forehand grip and thrown above the head.
8. Part of a clock that strikes upon a bell to indicate the hour.
9. One who, or that which, smites or shatters.
10. Ellipsis of hammer headline.
11. The accelerator pedal.
12. A moving part of a firearm that strikes the firing pin to discharge a gun.
13. (slang) A handgun.

Verb

1. To strike repeatedly with a hammer, some other implement, the fist, etc.
2. To form or forge with a hammer; to shape by beating.
3. To emphasize a point repeatedly.
4. To hit particularly hard.
5. (slang) To ride very fast.
6. To strike internally, as if hit by a hammer.
7. (slang) To defeat (a person, a team) resoundingly.
8. (slang) To make high demands on (a system or service).
9. To declare (a person) a defaulter on the stock exchange.
10. To beat down the price of (a stock), or depress (a market).
11. (colloquial) To have hard sex with.

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈhæm.ə(ɹ)/

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.