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sledgehammer

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Etymology

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A sledgehammer.

Compound of sledge +‎ hammer.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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sledgehammer (plural sledgehammers)

  1. A hammer that consists of a large, heavy, broad and flat block of metal (the head) attached to a handle typically 0.5 meter to 1 meter long. The sledgehammer's design is meant to allow it to be swung powerfully, and to distribute force over a wide area upon impact.
    • 1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC:
      These were succeeded by anchor and chain-cable forges, where sledgehammers were dinging upon iron all day long.
    • 2015 February 26, Ben Wedeman, Dana Ford, “Video shows ISIS militants destroying antiquities in Iraq”, in CNN‎[1], archived from the original on 1 February 2023:
      They take sledgehammers to statues with an uncommon gusto – destroying in seconds what may have survived centuries.

Alternative forms

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Coordinate terms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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Verb

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sledgehammer (third-person singular simple present sledgehammers, present participle sledgehammering, simple past and past participle sledgehammered)

  1. (transitive) To strike (something) with a sledgehammer.
    • 1989 December 10, Clyde H. Farnsworth, “Japan's Loud Voice in Washington”, in The New York Times‎[2]:
      Some lawmakers were so incensed that they even invited the news media to watch the sledgehammering of the Japanese company's products on the Capitol's steps.
    • 2009 February 22, Jane And Michael Stern, “Nirvana Express”, in The New York Times‎[3], archived from the original on 26 November 2022:
      She’s trying to piece together shards of precious pottery gleefully sledgehammered by a delegation led by the Taliban’s minister of culture, who deemed the world’s greatest collection of Central Asian artifacts un-Islamic.

Adjective

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sledgehammer (comparative more sledgehammer, superlative most sledgehammer)

  1. Completely lacking grace and dexterity.
    • 2015 October 26, Michael Boyer, “Brave new world of cancer treatment revealed”, in The University of Sydney‎[4], archived from the original on 2 April 2023:
      Promising new treatments avoid the sledgehammer approach of traditional chemotherapy in two key ways."

See also

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Further reading

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