A hammer is a tool meant to deliver an impact to an object. The most common uses are for driving nails, fitting parts, forging metal and breaking up objects. Hammers are often designed for a specific purpose, and vary widely in their shape and structure. The usual features are a handle and a head, with most of the weight in the head. The basic design is hand-operated, but there are also many mechanically operated models for heavier uses, such as steam hammers.
The hammer may be the oldest tool for which definite evidence exists. Stone hammers are known which are dated to 2,600,000 BCE.
The hammer is a basic tool of many professions. By analogy, the name hammer has also been used for devices that are designed to deliver blows, e.g. in the caplock mechanism of firearms.
Read more about Hammer: History, Designs and Variations, Tools Used in Conjunction With Hammers, War Hammers, Symbolic Hammers, Gallery
Famous quotes containing the word hammer:
“I suppose that one of the psychological principles of advertising is to so hammer the name of your product into the mind of the timid buyer that when he is confronted with a brusk demand for an order he can’t think of anything else to say, whether he wants it or not.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“Long lion days
Start with white haze.
By midday you meet
A hammer of heat....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“He asked water, and she gave him milk; she brought forth butter in
a lordly dish.
She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen’s
hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sis’e-ra, she smote off his
head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples.”
—Bible: Hebrew Judges (l. V, 25–26)