Hammer toe
deformity of the proximal joint of the second, third or fourth toe
A hammer toe, hammertoe or contracted toe is a deformity of the muscles and ligaments of the proximal interphalangeal joint of the second, third, fourth, or fifth toe, bending it into a shape resembling a hammer. In the early stage, a flexible hammertoe is movable at the joints; a rigid hammertoe joint cannot be moved and usually requires surgery.
Mallet toe is a similar condition affecting the distal interphalangeal joint.
Claw toe is another similar condition, with dorsiflexion of the proximal phalanx on the lesser metatarsophalangeal joint, combined with flexion of both the proximal and distal interphalangeal joints. Claw toe can affect the second, third, fourth, or fifth toes.
Types
There are three types of hammer toe, as categorized by podiatrists.
Flexible hammer toes are where patients are still able to bend and move the affected toes, but where a noticeable curl has begun to form.
Semi-rigid hammer toes are where the affected toes are hard to bend and are noticeably stiff.
Rigid hammer toes are frozen in a curled position. These are most likely to require surgery.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Hammer toe” as deformity of the proximal joint of the second, third or fourth toe. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q602477. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hammer toe” 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.