hammer

PRIMARY MEANINGS OF: hammer

1	n v	a hand tool with a heavy rigid head and a handle; used to deliver an impulsive force by striking beat with or as if with a hammer
2	n	a striker that is covered in felt and that causes the piano strings to vibrate

FULL DEFINITIONS OF: hammer

Types:: show 9 types...; hide 9 types...; ball-peen hammer
a hammer with one round and one flat end; used in working metal; bricklayer's hammer
a hammer used in laying bricks; carpenter's hammer, claw hammer, clawhammer
a hammer with a cleft at one end for pulling nails; beetle, mallet
a tool resembling a hammer but with a large head (usually wooden); used to drive wedges or ram down paving stones or for crushing or beating or flattening or smoothing; maul, sledge, sledgehammer
a heavy long-handled hammer used to drive stakes or wedges; percussor, plessor, plexor
(medicine) a small hammer with a rubber head used in percussive examinations of the chest and in testing reflexes; tack hammer
a light hammer that is used to drive tacks; carpenter's mallet
a short-handled mallet with a wooden head used to strike a chisel or wedge; gavel
a small mallet used by a presiding officer or a judge

Types:: air hammer, jackhammer, pneumatic hammer
a hammer driven by compressed air; electric hammer
a hammer driven by electric motor; triphammer
a massive power hammer; raised by a cam until released to fall under gravity

“the sudden hammer of fists caught him off guard”

“hammer the metal flat”

“hammer the silver into a bowl”

Types:: foliate
hammer into thin flat foils; dropforge
forge with a dropforge

Type of:: auditory ossicle
ossicles of the middle ear that transmit acoustic vibrations from the eardrum to the inner ear

Type of:: sports equipment
equipment needed to participate in a particular sport

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