- [countable] a tool with a handle and a heavy metal head, used for breaking things or hitting nails
- a gentle tap with a hammer
- Use a rubber hammer to level each slab.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryverb + hammer- hit something with
- tap something with
- use
- …
- blow
- a hammer and chisel
- a hammer and nails
- hammer and sickle
- …
- [countable] a tool with a handle and a wooden head, used by a person in charge of an auction (= a sale at which things are sold to the person who offers the most money) in order to get people’s attention when something is just being sold synonym gavel
- to come/go under the hammer (= to be sold at auction)
- Forty modern paintings went under the hammer at Christie’s today.
- [countable] a small wooden part inside a piano, that hits the strings to produce a sound
- [countable] a part inside a gun that makes the gun fire
- [countable] a metal ball attached to a wire, thrown as a sportTopics Sports: other sportsc2
- often the hammer[singular] the event or sport of throwing the hammer
- [countable] (anatomy) the first of three small bones in the middle ear that carry sound to the inner ear synonym malleusTopics Bodyc2
tool
in piano
in gun
sport
in ear
Word OriginOld English hamor, hamer, of Germanic origin: related to Dutch hamer, German Hammer, and Old Norse hamarr ‘rock’. The original sense was probably ‘stone tool’.
Idioms
See hammer in the Oxford Advanced American Dictionaryhammer and tongs
- (informal) if two people are at it hammer and tongs or go at it hammer and tongs, they argue or fight with a lot of energy and noise
- We could hear the neighbours going at it hammer and tongs.
Check pronunciation:
hammer