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Hammer   Listen
noun
Hammer  n.  
1.
An instrument for driving nails, beating metals, and the like, consisting of a head, usually of steel or iron, fixed crosswise to a handle. "With busy hammers closing rivets up."
2.
Something which in form or action resembles the common hammer; as:
(a)
That part of a clock which strikes upon the bell to indicate the hour.
(b)
The padded mallet of a piano, which strikes the wires, to produce the tones.
(c)
(Anat.) The malleus. See under Ear.
(d)
(Gun.) That part of a gunlock which strikes the percussion cap, or firing pin; the cock; formerly, however, a piece of steel covering the pan of a flintlock musket and struck by the flint of the cock to ignite the priming.
(e)
Also, a person or thing that smites or shatters; as, St. Augustine was the hammer of heresies. "He met the stern legionaries (of Rome) who had been the "massive iron hammers" of the whole earth."
3.
(Athletics) A spherical weight attached to a flexible handle and hurled from a mark or ring. The weight of head and handle is usually not less than 16 pounds.
Atmospheric hammer, a dead-stroke hammer in which the spring is formed by confined air.
Drop hammer, Face hammer, etc. See under Drop, Face, etc.
Hammer fish. See Hammerhead.
Hammer hardening, the process of hardening metal by hammering it when cold.
Hammer shell (Zool.), any species of Malleus, a genus of marine bivalve shells, allied to the pearl oysters, having the wings narrow and elongated, so as to give them a hammer-shaped outline; called also hammer oyster.
To bring to the hammer, to put up at auction.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Hammer" Quotes from Famous Books



... my awl to me!" He cried, his flame addressing— "If I 'adze such a love as yours, I'd ask no other blessing!" "I am rejoist to hear you speak," The maiden said with laughter— "For tho' I hammer guileless girl, It's plane what you are rafter. Now if file love you just a bit, What further can you ax me? Can—will you be content with that, Or will you further tacks me?" He looked handsaw her words were square— "No rival can ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... lance, two through the limbs, one through the arm, one through the heart, and the last has crashed through the forehead, nailing the head to the tree behind as if it had been dashed in by a sledge-hammer. The face, in spite of its ghastliness, is beautiful, and has been serene; and the light which enters first and glistens on the plumes of the arrows, dies softly away upon the curling hair, and mixes with the glory upon the forehead. There is not a more remarkable ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin

... No, Sylla: he that thrice hath borne The name of consul scorns to stoop to him, Whose heart doth hammer nought ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various

... release slide top with right thumb and let hammer down gently. To let hammer down, pull downward with point of right thumb till hammer presses against grip safety and forces it home; then while continuing this pressure on hammer, pull trigger; and while continuing ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker

... were looked upon as relics, with a feeling at once melancholy and religious. When the moment came for breaking up the plate Las Cases bears testimony to the painful emotions and real grief produced among the servants. They could not, without the utmost reluctance, bring themselves to apply the hammer to ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... scanty. We passed close to a village, in which the children were all at play; while upon the bushes over their heads were suspended an immense number of the beautiful nests of the sagacious 'baya' bird, or Indian yellow- hammer,[2] all within reach of a grown-up boy, and one so near the road that a grown-up man might actually look into it as he passed along, and could hardly help shaking it. It cannot fail to strike a ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... cross—kneed, and the tip of her russet boot almost grazed that of his Oxford tie. He did not notice: he was already arranging the first paragraph of a letter to a friend in Winnebago, Wisconsin. "Dear Arthur: I called,—as I said I was going to. She is a scrapper. She goes at you hammer and tongs—pretending to quarrel as a means ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... No. 17, at the south side, is an impact machine designed to gauge the sensitiveness of explosives to shock. For this purpose, a drop-hammer, constructed to meet the following requirements, is used: A substantial, unyielding foundation; minimum friction in the guide-grooves; and no escape or scattering of the explosive when struck by the falling weight. This machine is modeled after one used in ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • Herbert M. Wilson

... flintlock Kentuck, that had been made out of a fine, late percussion Kentuck by sawing off the breech-end of the barrel, rethreading it for the breech-plug, drilling a new vent, and fitting the lock with a flint hammer and a pan-and-frizzen assembly, and shortening the fore-end to fit. Rivers has a gunsmith over at Kingsville, one Elmer Umholtz, who does all his fraudulent conversions for him. I have an example of Umholtz's craftsmanship, myself. The collector ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper

... revolver in his hand, and, suddenly raising it, fired point-blank at his man, not fifteen feet away. The hammer snapped on the nipple, but the cartridge did not explode. Wilbur turned to the Chinaman next ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris

... with contorted arms, beckoning to the host of lesser trees. "Here," cried Winfried, as his eyes flashed and his hand lifted his heavy staff, "here is the Thunder-oak; and here the cross of Christ shall break the hammer of ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke

... take place. They will arrive a little before dusk, three-quarters of an hour before the gates of the cemetery are closed. The hearse will drive directly up to the grave. I shall follow; that is my business. I shall have a hammer, a chisel, and some pincers in my pocket. The hearse halts, the undertaker's men knot a rope around your coffin and lower you down. The priest says the prayers, makes the sign of the cross, sprinkles the holy water, and takes his departure. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... a trip-hammer, Winston stood motionless, staring into the girl's appealing face, suddenly aroused to her full meaning, and as thoroughly awakened to a conception of what she really had become to him. The thought of losing her, losing her perhaps to another, ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish

... said he would. He said that Mr. Man would most likely have to make the box, and he didn't suppose he knew where the hammer and nails were, and it might be dark before ...
— How Mr. Rabbit Lost his Tail • Albert Bigelow Paine

... sway beneath her, and scuttled down to make way for her sister. The daring rider across country possessed stronger nerves, but also a heavier body, and the ladder creaked so ominously beneath her that she insisted upon the whole company acting as props, in one breath sending them running for hammer and rope, and in the next shrieking to them to return ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... loitering across the deep-blue heaven. White butterflies wavered above the road. Tall foxglove spires lit the woodland shadows with rosy gleams. Bluebells and golden ragwort fringed the hedge-rows. A family of young wrens fluttered in and out of the hawthorns. A yellow-hammer, with cap of gold, warbled his sweet, common little song. The colour of the earth was warm and red; the grass was of a green so living that it seemed to be full of conscious gladness. It was a day and a scene to calm and ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke

... boxes, one for coarse and one for fine sugar. 1 Waffle iron. 1 Step ladder. 1 Stove, 1 coal shovel. 1 Pair of scales. 2 Coal hods or buckets. 1 Kitchen table, 2 kitchen chairs. 1 Large clothes basket. 1 Wash boiler, 1 wash board. 8 Dozen clothes pins. 1 Large nail hammer and one small tack hammer. 1 Bean pot. 1 ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette

... The demons scowl to no purpose. To no purpose the dragons coil. No trespasser threatens the god behind his dingy curtains. In one chamber only a priest kneels before the shrine and chants out of a book while he taps a bronze vessel with a little hammer. Else, solitude, vacuity, and silence. Is he Buddhist or Taoist? I have no language in which to ask. I can only accept with mute gestures the dusty seat he offers and the cup of lukewarm tea. What has happened to religion? So far as I can make out, something like the "disestablishment of the Church." ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... now a worse spendthrift than ever, and it was not long before the plantation went under the hammer, and Mrs. Mary Ruthven was compelled to live upon her sister-in-law's charity. St. John drifted to New Orleans and finally to the West, and that was the last heard of him. Let us trust that he saw the error of his ways and turned ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield

... attention to his threat, although I heard the click of the hammer of his rifle being cocked. I told him to get some wood to make a fire, as I wished to make myself a cup ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... cellar, such as any farmer in the country has, and the little that has been done to it to darken the windows and make them tight, so as to render them better for mushrooms, any farmer with a hand-saw, an ax, a hammer and a few nails and some boards can do. Mr. Gardner is a market gardener, and has not the amount of fresh manure upon his own place that he needs for mushroom-growing, but he buys it, common horse manure, in New York, and it is shipped to ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer

... that a company of fourteen whites and two Indians had spent the night at that point. Nos. 9, 10 indicate the white soldiers and their arms; No. 1 is the captain, with a sword; No. 2 the secretary, with the book; No. 3 the geologist, with a hammer; Nos. 7, 8 are the guides, without hats; Nos. 11,12 show what they ate in camp; Nos. 13,14,15 indicate how many fires ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.

... he was to see her again, to touch her hand, hear her voice, look into the eyes that had lighted him back from the path to destruction! Cleek's heart began to hammer and his pulses to drum. Needless to say, he took extraordinary care with his toilet that evening, with the result that when the ladies arrived there was nothing even vaguely suggestive of the ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... will make a library. There are some boards in the wood-shed, and I have a hammer and some nails, and perhaps we can borrow some hinges, and there we ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale

... the throat of one who had his teeth set in my shoulder, and, holding him straight before him with his arm extended, break his neck with one blow. Again, his club descended on one black skull with a glancing blow and shot off to the head of another with the force of a sledge-hammer. ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout

... carriages made by Hatchett puzzled the Chinese more than any of the other presents. Nothing of the kind had ever been seen at the capital; and the disputes among themselves as to the part which was intended for the seat of the Emperor were whimsical enough. The hammer-cloth that covered the box of the winter carriage had a smart edging, and was ornamented with festoons of roses. Its splendid appearance and elevated situation determined it at once, in the opinion of the majority, to be the Emperor's seat; but a difficulty arose how to appropriate the ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... to hammer away at the Austro-German lines on the Graberka and Sereth Rivers. On August 6, 1916, the Russian troops captured some more strongly fortified positions in the vicinity of the villages of Zvyjin, Kostiniec, and Reniuv. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... Oh, never any where, save in desert groves Brazilian, Was ever heard such endless and aimless gabble yet. For there the tribes of monkeys to the number of a million, Screech and chatter without ceasing, from the sunrise to the set. Rap! rap! rap! To quell the rising clamor; Order! order! order! Hammer! ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various

... allowances are made, it remains true that 'The Robbers' is a powerful stage-play which reveals in every scene the hand of the born dramatist. We may call it boyish if we will, but its boyishness is like that of 'Titus Andronicus'. Each is the work of a young giant who in learning the use of his hammer lays about him somewhat wildly and makes a tremendous hubbub. But Thor is Thor, and such boys ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... which affirms that at this spot somewhere about the eighth century Emperor Charlemagne met some heathen chieftain, who having already heard of his feats of strength promised to become a Christian should he be able to split this rock. The emperor took up a sledge hammer and with one tremendous blow broke the rock in two. (He must have been ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight

... over a small brazier, whence a flame and a light blue smoke arose and melted into the morning light. In his hand he held a small hammer, and he had a little anvil by him, on which lay one of the golden shoulder-plates of his armour. The other pieces were heaped beside the brazier. Kurri, the Sidonian, stood beside him, with graving tools in ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang

... want of reformation, makes the queasie-stomacked Brownists cast themselves out of the Church; and shall God alwayes suffer the land to beare us? But behold, he stands at the door & knocks, by treasons, by plagues, by the hammer of dearths, discontents, fires, inundations, especially by the word; his locks are wet with waiting. Oh before hee shake off the dust of his feet against us, and turne to some other nation more worthy, let us open the doore, that hee may come in and sup with us; if hee love us, hee will purge ...
— A Coal From The Altar, To Kindle The Holy Fire of Zeale - In a Sermon Preached at a Generall Visitation at Ipswich • Samuel Ward

... and what color, and he said, "I knew a couple of wimmin kept a milk snake in their dairy for a pet. Maybe this feller wants pettin'." Aunty May said he'd never get it from her, and she took a piece of tin and a hammer and tacks and went to close up the hole, but Mr. Taylor said, "Wait a minute, Miss May"; and he whispered to her, "Stand by a minute. There's a letter here from the War Department to Miss Edith, and I'm doubting it's being the best ...
— W. A. G.'s Tale • Margaret Turnbull

... won't go away, birdie. It's all nonsense. You know my old man. His wits are always wool-gathering; yet sometimes he takes a thing into his pate, and it's as if it were wedged in, you can't knock it out with a hammer. ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al

... a thousand," Owen whispered to Harding, and, catching the auctioneer's eyes, he nodded again. Seven hundred. "Will they never stop bidding? That fellow yonder is determined to run up the picture." Eight hundred and fifty! The auctioneer raised his hammer, and the watchful eyes went round the room in search of some one who would pay another ten pounds for Evelyn's portrait by Manet. Eight hundred and fifty—eight hundred and fifty. Down came the hammer. The auctioneer whispered "Sir ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore

... line of lawless bloods—a Scandinavian Berserker, if there ever was one—the literary heir of the Eddas—was specially created to wage that war—to smite the conventionality which is the tyrant of England with the hammer of Thor, and to sear with the sarcasm of Mephistopheles the hollow hypocrisy—sham taste, sham morals, sham religion—of the society by which he was surrounded and infected, and which all but succeeded in seducing him. ...
— Byron • John Nichol

... have a gentle and favorable wind, at the second knot a stronger wind, and at the third knot a violent and dangerous gale. He says, moreover, that the Bothnians, striking on an anvil hard blows with a hammer, upon a frog or a serpent of brass, fall down in a swoon, and during this swoon they learn what passes in ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... shutting herself off from that most fascinating pastime, house-building; leaving everything down to the minutest details to the imagination, ingenuity, and inventive genius of the Arab. For months she had listened to the monotonous chant of the men at work, the tap of hammer, swish of saw, and dull thud of machinery, and also to the grunting and grumbling of the camels who, in great caravans from every point of the compass, had complainingly brought ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest

... Constantinople in 379, and as bishop of that See adorned the high position with gifts and graces as brilliant as they were rare. But he was not the man for such a position at such a time. Hilary, the 'Hammer of the Arians,' could keep the heretics at bay, and do in the Latin Church what Gregory could not do in the Greek Church—maintain his position and his cause against all comers. For one thing, the retiring disposition of Gregory inclined him to shrink from ...
— Hymns of the Greek Church - Translated with Introduction and Notes • John Brownlie

... in cheese and halfpence, buried in different parts of the garden. The new raven (I have a new one, but he is comparatively of weak intellect) administered to his effects, and turns up something every day. The last piece of bijouterie was a hammer of considerable size, supposed to have been stolen from a vindictive carpenter, who had been heard to speak darkly ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes

... also of these countries have learnt all the trades used among us in Spain, having their shops, manufactories, and work-people. Their goldsmiths and silversmiths, both those who make cast work or who use the hammer, are excellent. Their lapidaries or engravers on precious stones, especially emeralds, execute the nicest representations of the holy acts and passion of our blessed Saviour, in such a manner as could not be believed from Indians. Three of our native ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... into the wilderness against her explicit desire that memorable time. And he was now exhibiting an unsuspected polish. She used to wonder amusedly if he were possibly the same Roaring Bill whom she had with her eyes seen hammer a man insensible with his fists, who had kept "tough" frontiersmen warily side-stepping him in Cariboo Meadows. Certainly he ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... at last came, we knocked out the head of the keg with the little hammer and chisel, always attached to it for that purpose, and removed the compass, that glistened to us like a human eye. Then filling up the vacancy with biscuit, we again made all tight, driving down the hoops till they ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... murdered his mother Costanza in her bed, with the view of obtaining property over which she had control. The sentence issued a few days after this event. Giacomo was condemned to be torn to pieces by red hot pincers, and finished with a coup de grace from the hangman's hammer. Lucrezia and Beatrice received the slighter sentence of decapitation; while Bernardo, in consideration of his youth, was let off with the penalty of being present at the execution of his kinsfolk, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... these reactions is explained by the subject's acquaintance with a young lady, Miss T...., who has been nick-named "Blossom," and the second is explained by the subject's having among her pupils at school a boy by the name of J.... Hammer. ...
— A Study of Association in Insanity • Grace Helen Kent

... yesterday; from the Roman one—six. Give me four, good Arrius—four more—and I will stand firm for you, though old Thor, my namesake, strike me with his hammer. Make it four, and I will kill the lying patrician, if you say so. I have only to cover his mouth with ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... their methods and their organisation you must go back to the worship of Baphomet in the Middle Ages. In some of their lodges they reproduce with a goat one at least of the abominations which Von Hammer tells us were charged upon the Knights Templars as Baphometic. They are a sect—a persecuting sect, and a sect bent on absolutely destroying the Christian religion. To this end they parody the Christian symbols and the Christian ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... 5. POUNDING.—Hammer a nail flat on an anvil or stone; feel it. Bullets fired against an iron or stone surface may be picked up very hot. Note sparks that can be struck from a stone; percussion caps, ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education

... was at work cleaving a fallen tree, using wedges formed from the hardest, toughest wood the Indians know. It was the Kla-to-mupt, the western yew. With mighty blows of his stone hammer, he sunk a wedge deep in the log, rending it open, split to the centre ...
— Indian Legends of Vancouver Island • Alfred Carmichael

... my notion. Think he mistook th' False Ridge drop. Ain't no man could make it up again without th' hammer spike an' rope." ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe

... tendency of all atoms in combination to repeat any combination which they have once repeated, unless forcibly prevented from doing so—which alone renders nine- tenths of our mechanical inventions of practical use to us. There is no internal periodicity about a hammer or a saw, but there is in the steam-engine or watermill when once set in motion. The actions of these machines recur in a regular series, at regular intervals, with ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler

... lumbered ahead, and we followed it casually. Around the corner it turned. We turned also. My heart was going like a sledge-hammer as the critical moment approached. My head was in a whirl. What would that gay throng back of those darkened windows down the street think if they knew what was being ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... destruction evolves or sets free the force that we recognize as movement, speech, thought, and emotion. The number of cells destroyed depends upon the intensity and duration of the effort that correlates their destruction. When a blacksmith wields a hammer for an hour, he uses up the number of cells necessary to yield that amount of muscular force. When a girl studies Latin for an hour, she uses up the number of brain-cells necessary to yield that amount of intellectual force. As fast as one cell is destroyed, another is generated. ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke

... punched out the loaded cartridges. He pulled the pin, pushed the cylinder out with his thumb, and examined it against the light. Carefully he cleaned and replaced the cylinder, reloaded it, held the hammer back, and spun the cylinder with his hand. Finally he thrust the gun in the holster and, striding to the bed, sat down, ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... mischief as women can be at times, and fascinated him more than ever with her little demurenesses and half-confidences. She even said "Thee" to him once in reproach for a cutting speech he began. And the sweet little word made his heart beat like a trip-hammer, for never in all her life had she said "thee" ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... I should, in the true spirit of romantic story, give some account of the looks and equipments of my hero and his steed. The animal he bestrode was a broken down plow-horse, that had outlived almost everything but its viciousness. He was gaunt and shagged, with a ewe neck, and a head like a hammer; his rusty mane and tail were tangled and knotted with burs; one eye had lost its pupil, and was glaring and spectral, but the other had the gleam of a genuine devil in it. Still he must have had fire and mettle in his day, if we may judge from the name he bore of Gunpowder. He had, in fact, ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... did and said. It might be foolish, but it was on that account none the less delightful. They sent out scouts to watch for the approach of an imaginary enemy; they had secret pass-words and signs; they swore (Viking style) by Thor's hammer and by Odin's eye. They talked appalling nonsense to each other with a delicious sentiment of its awful blood-curdling character. It was about noon when they reached the Strandholm saeter, which consisted of three turf-thatched log-cabins or chalets, surrounded ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... rebukes all armed resistance of evil. 'Suffer ye thus far' is a command to oppose violence only by meek endurance, which wins in the long run, as surely as the patient sunshine melts the thick ice, which is ice still, when pounded with a hammer. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... which are few and inexpensive, will be required: A pair of clams (Fig. 4), cost 1s. 6d.; knife (Fig. 5), 6d.; half dozen awl blades, 1/2d. each; three or four boxwood handles, 11/2d. each; 3 foot rule, 1s.; hammer, 1s.; a packet of harness needles, size 4, cost 21/2d. (these have blunt points); a bone (Fig. 6) will also be required for rubbing the stiffening into place, cost about 3d.; and a ball each of hemp and wax for making the sewing threads—hemp 21/2d., wax ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 • Various

... participation in this traffic, let us pledge ourselves here, upon the rock of Plymouth, to extirpate and destroy it. It is not fit that the land of the Pilgrims should bear the shame longer. I hear the sound of the hammer, I see the smoke of the furnaces where manacles and fetters are still forged for human limbs. I see the visages of those who by stealth and at midnight labor in this work of hell, foul and dark, as may become the artificers of ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... suspend their labours till his return, proceed for ever in their office; and the traveller who passes that way, if he lays his ear close to the mouth of the cavern, may hear a ghastly noise of iron chains and brazen caldrons, the loud strokes of the hammer, and the ringing sound of the anvil, intermixed with the pants and groans of the workmen, enough to unsettle the brain and confound the faculties of him that for any time shall listen to ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin

... other articles of household use. Often, the forge and the anvil, with tools for rough iron working, were added to the equipment of the farm. In those days, farming required a knowledge of the use of tools; the square, the level, the plumb-bob; the hammer, the saw and the plane; were as necessary to the farmer, as ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... comed a'most too late. Years ago, when Sam was young and peart, de berry smell of freedom make de sap bump through de veins like trip-hammer. Den, world all before, now world all behind. Nothing but t'other side of Jordan before. 'Bleeged to you, berry much, but when mas'r bought ole Sam for pity, ole Sam feel in his bones that some time he pay Mas'r Hugh; he don't know how, but ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... bullock-carts through the streets of Paris, with their long hair flowing, have all wended slowly on,—into Eternity. Charlemagne sleeps at Salzburg, with truncheon grounded; only Fable expecting that he will awaken. Charles the Hammer, Pepin Bow-legged, where now is their eye of menace, their voice of command? Rollo and his shaggy Northmen cover not the Seine with ships; but have sailed off on a longer voyage. The hair of Towhead (Tete d'etoupes) now needs no combing; Iron-cutter (Taillefer) cannot cut ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... his cabin, burning sulphur to make his ship seem more like hell, and industriously scourging the whole Atlantic coast. Charleston lived in terror of him until Lieutenant Maynard, in a small sloop, laid him alongside in a hammer-and-tongs engagement and cut off the head of Blackbeard to dangle from ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine

... childhood; they made strong, hardy, brave soldiers. Indifferent to danger, they were less careful of their lives than some from the older States. They were fine marksmen; with a steady nerve and bold hearts, they won, like Charles Martel, with their hammer-like blows. They were the fanatical Saraceus of the South; while nothing could stand before the broad scimeters of the former, so nothing could stand in the way of the rifle ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... percussion pills or primings, and the tube, under the barrel, with the hollow cartridges containing gunpowder. Of these cartridges the tube will hold twenty-four. Place the forefinger in the ring which forms the end of the lever, e, and the thumb on the hammer, elevating the muzzle sufficiently to let the cartridge nearest the breech slip, by its gravity, into the carrier d; swing the lever forward, and raise the hammer which moves the breech-pin back, and the carrier up, placing the cartridge ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... out our machine-guns began to hammer, and the boy fresh out from England felt a fierce thrill of exultation seize him, for this was the real thing at last—the thing he had ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry

... this time," he remarked as he worked. "If you ever have any idea, Walter, of going into the burglary business, it would be well to ascertain if the safes have any of these little selenium cells as suggested by my friend, Mr. Hammer, the inventor. For by them an alarm can be given miles away the moment an intruder's bull's-eye falls on a ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... take the masons long to point up and strengthen the old foundations, and early in September everything was under full headway, the sound of hammer, saw, and plane resounding all day long. It was Winnie's and Bobsey's task to gather up the shavings and refuse bits of lumber, and carry them to ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe

... including the fashioning of a bedroom suite from barrels finally covered with neat-figured denim. The semiweekly theory classes are not unlike those of the plain-sewing division, and the girl is as proud of her achievement with needle, hammer, and saw as if she were an adept ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various

... flutter. The seniors, under question, discover that they have no body of doctrine, and have never till now dreamt of the need of any. If they are wise, they will put away the taboo on politics and sit down with their juniors to hammer these things out, and perchance clear their own minds in ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell

... Winnebago dock, but a wooden box from the express company. The girls crowded around to get a look at it. It was addressed to the "Winnebago Camp Fire Girls, Camp Winnebago, Loon Lake, Maine." Sahwah ran and got a hammer and soon had ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey

... queen. Dull of perception and indifferent to affairs of state, he had only two interests that absorbed him. One was the love of hunting, and the other was his desire to shut himself up in a sort of blacksmith shop, where he could hammer away at the anvil, blow the bellows, and manufacture small trifles of mechanical inventions. From this smudgy den he would emerge, sooty and greasy, an object of distaste to his frivolous princess, with her foamy laces and perfumes ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... punishment. Prometheus is borne upon the scene by Force and Strength, and is nailed to a lofty cliff by Hephaestus. His appeal to Nature, when his tormentors depart and he is left alone, is peculiarly pathetic. The daughters of Oceanus, constituting the Chorus, who have heard the sound of the hammer in their ocean cave, are now borne in aloft on a winged car, and bewail the fate of the outraged god. Oceanus appears upon a winged steed, and offers his mediation; but this is scornfully rejected. The resolution of Prometheus to resist Zeus to the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... moment the scene changed. Before the men could even rise from their seats they were knocked down, bits of sacking thrust into their mouths, and their arms tied. Leigh had levelled one of the commissaries by a blow in the face, and the foreman had struck down the other with a hammer. These were ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty

... and strong and handsome like a peasant woman, went about as if there were a weight on her, and her voice was high and strident. She, too, was finished in her life. But she remained unbroken, her will was like a hammer that ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence

... upon him by the press, by many of his friends, and by such a man as Emerson, whom he deeply reverenced, to change or omit certain passages from his poems, seems only to have served as the opposing hammer that clinched the nail. The louder the outcry the more deeply he felt it his duty to stand by his first convictions. The fierce and scornful opposition to his sex poems, and to his methods and aims generally, was probably more ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs

... Haven, Ct.," on top of octagon barrel. Brass frame, barrel swings out to load on pressure on a stud under frame, rosewood grips, rear sight notched in hammer. Presented by Dr. L. M. ...
— A Catalogue of Early Pennsylvania and Other Firearms and Edged Weapons at "Restless Oaks" • Henry W. Shoemaker

... redpoll (Acanthis linaria), chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs) and greenfinch (Chloris chloris) are established in New Zealand, the last named being a pest there, as is also the cirl-bunting (Emberiza cirlus)—-the yellow-hammer (E. citrinella) being perhaps ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... of Oxford appeared in those days to consist in honouring the King and his Ministers, and in perpetually popping in and out of chapel. Chapel was announced by the strokes of a big hammer, beaten on every staircase half an hour before by a scout. The education was suited to Divinity. A sort of supervision was said to be kept over the young, riotous community, and to a certain extent the Proctors of the University and the ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller

... then tried to set the factory on fire, but failed. Enraged at being baffled, a powerful man advanced on the door with a sledge-hammer, and began to pound against it. At length one of the panels gave way, and as a shout arose from those looking on, he boldly attempted to crawl through. The report of a solitary carbine was heard, and the brains of the man lay scattered ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley

... better," says the other. Upon this he goes to work, and first by heating a piece of an old broken chisel in the fire, and then with the help of his file, he made himself several kinds of tools for his work. Then he takes three or four pieces of eight, and beats them out with a hammer upon a stone, till they were very broad and thin; then he cuts them out into the shape of birds and beasts; he made little chains of them for bracelets and necklaces, and turned them into so many devices of his own head, that it is hardly to ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe

... firm in their stalwart hands unbroken as before. But in furious rage with them Idas, Aphareus' son, with his great sword hewed at the spear near the butt, and the edge leapt back repelled by the shock, like a hammer from the anvil; and the heroes shouted with joy for their hope in the contest. And then he sprinkled his body, and terrible prowess entered into him, unspeakable, dauntless; and his hands on both sides thrilled vigorously as they swelled with strength. And as when a warlike steed eager for ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius

... seemed to me, that she must go to pieces. Or if the ice on which she floated, fouled some other berg it might cost us all our spars. Then again occurred the dismal question, Suppose she should launch herself, would she float? For eight-and-forty years she had been high and dry; never a caulker's hammer had rung upon her in all that time. Tassard had spoken of her as a stout ship, and so she was, I did not doubt; but the old rogue talked as if she had been stranded six months only! I had no other ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell

... through my peep-hole. The man is of a fine American type, sinewy, resolute, hawk-eyed. The mountain sunshine provides me with Roentgen rays, and I see Wall Street inside his brow. "Dew lait," they yell. As there is no answer, they hammer at the door. The door is adamant. They leave reluctantly. "I think I saw the face of one of those Swiss idiots through the curtains," says the lady in pink; "of course he would not understand ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby

... character and prospects. But had I read it I could scarce have seen more clear in her designs. Maybe I was countryfeed; at least, I was not so much so as she thought; and it was plain enough, even to my homespun wits, that she was bent to hammer up a match between her cousin and a beardless boy that was something of a laird ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... I with my hammer pounding evermore The rocky coast, smite Andes into dust, Strewing my bed, and, in another age, Rebuild a continent of better men. Then I unbar the doors; my paths lead out The exodus of nations; I disperse Men to all shores that front the hoary main. I too have arts and sorceries; Illusion ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... suddenly crushed, was lifted out of the water by every movement of the ice, and then fell back again on it with the force of a trip-hammer. At any moment after one of these frightful falls they might be broken up, crushed, buried. To ward off this danger there was only one resource, and this was to re-enforce their barrier by heaping up the drift ice and snow around ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne

... to the garrulous Ruffo, who emphasised each phrase with a blow of his little hammer on a shoe. He had wasted all his morning hours, and learned nothing. He felt like a man who is lost in a strange and deserted country at night; he could find no clue, could see no light. Perhaps if ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida

... ages ago a beautiful fern grew in a deep vale, nodding in the breeze. One day it fell, complaining as it sank away that no one would remember its grace and beauty. The other day a geologist went out with his hammer in the interest of his science. He struck a rock; and there in the seam lay the form of a fern—every leaf, every fibre, the most delicate traceries of the leaves. It was the fern which ages since grew and dropped into the indistinguishable mass of vegetation. It perished; but its memorial ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... two men faced one another thus, looking into one another's eyes, their ears caught a sound from behind the closed door of the inner room—a sharp, hard, metallic sound as if some one in the room within had raised the hammer of a pistol—a jewelled pistol like ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock

... a dead frog's leg in Bologna becomes galvanic. The gas breaking on the surface of a brewery vat, well watched by Priestley, bursts forth into pneumatic chemistry. A spider's web in the Duke of Devonshire's garden expands in the mind of my lord's gardener, Brown, into a suspension bridge. A sledge hammer, well swung in Cromarty, opened those New Walks in an Old Field. The diffraction of light revealed itself to Young in the hues of a soap-bubble. As the genie of the oriental tale unfolded his huge height from the bottle stamped ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... blood began to hammer in his veins again, and his heart beat rapidly. Hope went through him like wine, drowning all the fears and terrors that had stalked before him like demons from another world. He heard, with throbbing pulses, approaching ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew

... the parlor, and proceeding to the farmyard, made a signal to one of the Hogans, who went down hammer in hand to where he stood. During a period of ten minutes, he and Hycy remained in conversation, but of what character it was, whether friendly or otherwise, the distance at which they stood rendered it impossible for any one to ascertain. Hycy then ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... happenings which will cause us to hold our breath, and our hair to bristle like a nail-brush. Who has not heard the story of the unarmed fishing boat which attacked a hostile periscope with nothing more formidable than a coal hammer, or the ex-fisherman who attempted to cloud Fritz's vision ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling

... to operate a trip-hammer for the forging of great guns, and an expert machinist desires to march with the flag, the Nation is being served only when the sharpshooter marches and the machinist remains at his levers. The whole Nation must be ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson

... mizzentopmast overside along in the general crash. The Francis Spaight righted, and it was well that she was lumber laden, else she would have sunk, for she was already water-logged. The mainmast, still fast by the shrouds, beat like a thunderous sledge-hammer against the ship's side, every stroke bringing groans from ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London

... and looked down on this lithe, agile bantam that was hopping about at his feet. Suddenly the bantam crouched, sprang, and recoiled like a steel trap. Something had crashed up against Slovatsky's chin. Red rage shook him. He raised his sledge-hammer right for a slashing blow. Moran was directly in the path of it. It seemed that he could no more dodge it than he could hope to escape an onrushing locomotive, but it landed on empty air, with Moran around in back of the Russian, and peering impishly up ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber

... unheard-of powers would be vouchsafed to man. A practical materialist, what Bannadonna had aimed at was to have been reached, not by logic, not by crucible, not by conjuration, not by altars; but by plain vice-bench and hammer. In short, to solve nature, to steal into her, to intrigue beyond her, to procure some one else to bind her to his hand;—these, one and all, had not been his objects; but, asking no favors from any element or any being, of himself, to ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... entered this city, we obtained a fine view of its great glory, the Cathedral spire. What an object! It does not seem as if hammer and chisel had had any thing to do here. I can almost fancy that this spire was thought out and elaborated by mere intellect. It would be long ere I grew weary of looking at this wondrous work of man. The more you examine this edifice, the more you are impressed with its magnificence. Let ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various

... that the bolt could not be moved without the aid of a hammer and a lever. Afterwards we closed the window and the other door and securely locked the last. Thus no human being could ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji

... against the grain for Ronicky Doone to attack a man by surprise, but necessity is a stern ruler. And the necessity which made him strike made him hit with the speed of a snapping whiplash and the weight of a sledge hammer. Before the other was fully turned that iron-hard set of knuckles crashed against the base ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand

... she is less valuable from having fractured her left wrist, deformity being always taken into account when such property is up at the flesh shambles. But Mr. Blackmore Blackett has a delicacy about putting her up under the hammer just now, inasmuch as he could not say she was sold for no fault; while the disfigured wrist might lead to suspicious remarks concerning his treatment of her. Another extremely unfortunate circumstance was its getting all about the city that she was ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... which is composed of copper and zinc. It is more fusible than copper, and not so apt to tarnish. In a pure state it is not malleable, unless when hot, and after it has been melted twice it will not bear the hammer. To render it capable of being wrought, it requires 7 lb. of lead to be put to 1 cwt. ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... I can't say," he replied at last. "Why, my friend I couldn't help improving it a lot if I hit it with a hammer." ...
— Best Short Stories • Various

... last to a small room that was to be her portion and her pension forevermore. Her old quarters, austere and clean and bare, had been effaced by the carpenter's hammer, and this corner retreat had been partitioned from a domestic recess in the rear. But it was on the parlor floor, that fetich of a devoted life. Crippled and useless, Treesa was an object of unobtrusive care. She kept her shrunken savings about her person, ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts



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