Home › Glossary › Letter H

hammer

Tools
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A hammer is a tool with a weighted head fixed to a handle, used for striking, driving, shaping, or breaking.

Detailed Definition
The hammer is one of the most universal tools, serving carpenters, smiths, masons, miners, builders, and judges in different forms. In poetry it can signal honest labour, industrial power, violence, judgement, or creation. Its blow is immediate and rhythmic, making the sound of hammering easy to imitate through stress and repetition. As a symbol, it may forge a future, drive home a truth, break oppression, or crush resistance, so its moral meaning depends on the hand that wields it and the object struck.
Example
Example in poetry:
In William Blake's The Tyger, the hammer helps imagine the terrifying act of creation; The hammer rang on iron until the workshop seemed full of bells; A hammer may symbolise labour, judgement, violence, or the power to build; Each accusation struck him like a hammer blow.
Additional Notes
The hammer is one of the most symbolically flexible tools in poetry. It may build a house, forge metal, drive a nail, break stone, pronounce judgement, or become a weapon. Its rhythm naturally supports strong stresses and repeated sounds, allowing poets to imitate hammering through language. Students should consider both the object struck and the purpose of the blow. Related terms include anvil, forge, nail, mallet, sledgehammer, stonecutter's hammer, creation, violence, labour, judgement, rhythm, authority, and the shaping of resistant material.
Also Known As
Striking Hammer Mallet Impact Tool
Skip to main content