Hammer
tool meant to deliver an impact to an object
A hammer is a tool, most often a hand tool, consisting of a weighted "head" fixed to a long handle that is swung to deliver an impact to an object. This can be used to drive nails into wood, to shape metal (as with a forge), or to crush rock. Hammers are used for a wide range of driving, shaping, breaking and non-destructive striking applications. Traditional disciplines include carpentry, blacksmithing, warfare, and percussive musicianship (as with a gong).
The modern hammer head is typically made of steel which has been heat treated for hardness, and the handle (also known as a haft or helve) is typically made of wood or plastic.
Ubiquitous in framing, the claw hammer has a "claw" to pull nails out of wood, and is commonly found in an inventory of household tools in North America. Other types of hammers vary in shape, size, and structure, depending on their purposes. Hammers used in many trades include sledgehammers, mallets, and ball-peen hammers. Although most hammers are hand tools, powered hammers, such as steam hammers and trip hammers, are used to deliver forces beyond the capacity of the human arm. There are over 40 different types of hammers that have many different types of uses.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Hammer” is tool meant to deliver an impact to an object. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Hammer, tool and meant, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “tool meant to deliver an impact to an object” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q25294. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hammer” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.