sledgehammer
/ˈslɛdʒhamə
/noun
1A large, heavy hammer used for such jobs as breaking rocks and driving in fence posts.We succeeded in moving some rocks, breaking up several large ones with sledgehammers before we broke the handles on Dave and Stan's largest hammers....
- To get to the watches, the thieves had to break half-inch thick glass with a sledgehammer or other heavy implement.
- In the other picture, five black men in undershirts and overalls are driving a massive iron support into the ground with heavy sledgehammers.
1.1 [as modifier] Powerful; forceful: sledgehammer blows...
- Though the famous corkscrew left crashed to its mark on Darcy's chin with all its old-time power, the psychological effect of its impotency was almost as unnerving as were Darcy's own sledgehammer blows.
- Jobs have been lost all over the US - but Ohio has been hit by a series of sledgehammer blows.
- Was that feeling not worth this disabling sledgehammer blow of sorrow?
1.2 [as modifier] Ruthless, insensitive, or using unnecessary force: under his sledgehammer direction, anything of subtlety is swamped...
- Yet Robbins's mix of pile-driver satire and sledgehammer sentiment crushes this enthusiasm by making one thing appallingly clear: just because you are on the side of the angels, it doesn't mean you are any good.
- This has given him more freedom to come and go as he pleases, and not worry about where he's going and who he's seeing, without having the possibility of a sledgehammer response coming from the homeland.
- His argument isn't funny, though - it's a sledgehammer use of manipulative language to bluff Australians into believing they can't decide against war.
verb [with object]
Hit with a sledgehammer: the jailhouse door was sledgehammered figurative he sledgehammers obduracy with scholarship and invective...
- They had sledgehammered the door and it caved in.
- The stakes are sledgehammered into the ground about 10 to 12 inches and two 3-inch sheetrock screws are used to secure each stake.
- Hence, I spent a good morning on Sunday sledgehammering the concrete fenceposts out of the front garden.