different between whack vs hammer

English

Etymology

Uncertain. Originally Scottish. Probably onomatopoeic, although possibly a variant of thwack.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /wæk/
• (without the wine–whine merger) IPA^(key): /?æk/
• Rhymes: -æk
• Homophone: wack (accents with the wine-whine merger)

Noun

whack (plural whacks)

1. The sound of a heavy strike.
2. The strike itself.
3. The stroke itself, regardless of its successful impact.
4. (US, slang) An attempt, a chance, a turn, a go, originally an attempt to beat someone or something.

   C'mon. Take a whack at it.

   40 bucks a whack.

5. (originally Britain cant, dated) A share, a portion, especially a full share or large portion.
   • 1906, Jack London, White Fang, New York: Grosset and Dunlap, Part 1, Chapter 2, p. 16,^[1]

     “It’s damned tame, whatever it is, comin’ in here at feedin’ time an’ gettin’ its whack of fish.”

   • 1938, Xavier Herbert, Capricornia, New York: Appleton, Chapter VII, page 108,^[2]

     “ […] O'Cannon's a taxpayer. He pays his whack towards the upkeep of the State School up in town—”

   • 1951, Katherine Mansfield, Letters to John Middleton Murry, 1913-1922,

     For one thing I had a splendid supper when I got on board—a whack of cold, lean beef and pighells, bread, butter ad lib., tea, and plenty of good bread.

   • 2014, Anthony Pritchard, Grand Prix Ferrari (page 203)

     There were problems over the installation of the engine and the handling. The team had paid top whack for the two Coopers, but the company gave them no help at all.

6. (obsolete) A whack-up: a division of an amount into separate whacks, a divvying up.
7. (US, obsolete) A deal, an agreement.
   • 1876, Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Ch. vi, page 70:

     "I'll stay if you will."
     "Good—that's a whack."

   It's a whack!

8. (typography, computing, slang) The backslash, ??\??.

   del c:\docs\readme.txt

   Delete c colon whack docs whack readme dot text.

Derived terms

• full whack
• have a whack at
• out of whack
• take a whack at
• top whack
• wacky
• whack up, whack-up

Translations

Verb

whack (third-person singular simple present whacks, present participle whacking, simple past and past participle whacked)

1. To hit, slap or strike.
   • G. W. Cable

     Rodsmen were whacking their way through willow brakes.

2. (slang) To kill, bump off.
3. (transitive, slang) To share or parcel out (often with up).

   to whack the spoils of a robbery

   • 1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, London: G. Newbold, Volume 2, p. 152,

     When the sewer-hunters consider they have searched long enough […] the gang […] count out the money they have picked up, and proceed to dispose of the old metal, bones, rope, &c.; this done, they then, as they term it, “whack” the whole lot; that is, they divide it equally among all hands.

4. (sports) To beat convincingly; to thrash.
   • 2012, Ryan Pyette, Majors, Panthers play mind games, The London Free Press:

     The fidgety Majors were whacked 9-1 by the Kitchener Panthers at Couch and now trail their rivals 2-0 in an increasingly uncomfortable best-of-seven Intercounty Baseball League first-round series.

5. (Britain, chiefly in the negative) To surpass; to better.
   • 2012, Steve Cullen, Total Flyfisher:

     Recently I was over in Ireland, I love the place, proper fishing, can't whack it!

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:kill

Derived terms

• whack off
• whack the illy

Translations

Adjective

whack (comparative whacker, superlative whackest)

1. Alternative form of wack (“crazy”)

   That's whack, yo!

   • 2007, Joyce E. Davis, Can't Stop The Shine, page 51:

     As they joked about the big butts on female celebrities and what rappers had the whackest lyrics, Malcolm paid little attention to Kalia besides squeezing her hand or grabbing her arm to hold himself up […]

References

• Oxford English Dictionary, 1st ed. "whack, n." Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1923.

English

Etymology

From Middle English hamer, from Old English hamor, from Proto-Germanic *hamaraz (“tool with a stone head”) (compare West Frisian hammer, Low German Hamer, Dutch hamer, German Hammer, Danish hammer, Swedish hammare), from Proto-Indo-European *h?e?moros (compare Sanskrit ????? (a?mará, “stony”)), itself a derivation from *h?é?m? (“stone”).

For *h?é?m? (“stone”), compare Lithuanian akmuõ, Latvian akmens, Russian ?????? (kamen?), Serbo-Croatian kam?n, Albanian kmesë (“sickle”), Ancient Greek ????? (ákm?n, “meteor rock, anvil”), Avestan ????????????????????? (namsa), Sanskrit ?????? (á?man)) (root *h?e?- (“sharp”)).

(declare a defaulter on the stock exchange): Originally signalled by knocking with a wooden mallet.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?hæ.m?(?)/
• Rhymes: -æm?(r)
• (US) IPA^(key): /?hæ.m?/

Noun

hammer (plural hammers)

1. A tool with a heavy head and a handle used for pounding.

2. The act of using a hammer to hit something.

3. A moving part of a firearm that strikes the firing pin to discharge a gun.
4. (anatomy) The malleus, a small bone of the middle ear.
5. (music) In a piano or dulcimer, a piece of wood covered in felt that strikes the string.

6. (sports) A device made of a heavy steel ball attached to a length of wire, and used for throwing.
7. (curling) The last stone in an end.
8. (frisbee) A frisbee throwing style in which the disc is held upside-down with a forehand grip and thrown above the head.
9. Part of a clock that strikes upon a bell to indicate the hour.
10. One who, or that which, smites or shatters.

    St. Augustine was the hammer of heresies.

    • 1849, John Henry Newman, Discourses to Mixed Congregations

      He met the stern legionaries [of Rome] who had been the massive iron hammers of the whole earth.

11. (journalism) Short for hammer headline.
    • 1981, Harry W. Stonecipher, ?Edward C. Nicholls, ?Douglas A. Anderson, Electronic Age News Editing (page 104)

      Hammers are, in essence, reverse kickers. Instead of being set in smaller type like kickers, hammers are set in larger type than headlines.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• mallet

Verb

hammer (third-person singular simple present hammers, present participle hammering, simple past and past participle hammered)

1. To strike repeatedly with a hammer, some other implement, the fist, etc.
2. To form or forge with a hammer; to shape by beating.

   • hammered money

3. (figuratively) To emphasize a point repeatedly.
4. (sports) To hit particularly hard.
5. (cycling, intransitive, slang) To ride very fast.
   • 2011, Tim Moore, French Revolutions: Cycling the Tour de France (page 58)

     Fifteen minutes later, leaving a vapour trail of kitchen smells, I hammered into Obterre.
6. (intransitive) To strike internally, as if hit by a hammer.

   I could hear the engine’s valves hammering once the timing rod was thrown.

7. (transitive, slang, figuratively, sports) To defeat (a person, a team) resoundingly

   We hammered them 5-0!

8. (transitive, slang, computing) To make high demands on (a system or service).
   • 1995, Optimizing Windows NT (volume 4, page 226)

     So we'll be hammering the server in an unrealistic manner, but we'll see how the additional clients affect overall performance. We'll add two, three, four, and then five clients, […]

9. (transitive, finance) To declare (a person) a defaulter on the stock exchange.
10. (transitive, finance) To beat down the price of (a stock), or depress (a market).
11. (transitive, colloquial) To have hard sex with

    Synonym: pound

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• hammer out

Danish

Etymology

From Old Norse hamarr, from Proto-Germanic *hamaraz, from Proto-Indo-European *h?e?moros, from *h?é?m? (“stone”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ham?r/, [?h?m?]

Noun

hammer c (singular definite hammeren, plural indefinite hammere or hamre)

1. hammer

Inflection

German

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?ham?/
• Homophone: Hammer

Verb

hammer

1. (colloquial, regional) Contraction of haben wir.

Usage notes

This contraction is common throughout central Germany, southern Germany, and Austria. It is only occasionally heard in northern Germany.

See also

• simmer

Middle English

Noun

hammer

1. Alternative form of hamer

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology 1

From Old Norse hamarr, from Proto-Germanic *hamaraz, from Proto-Indo-European *h?e?moros, from *h?é?m? (“stone”).

Alternative forms

• hammar

Noun

hammer m (definite singular hammeren, indefinite plural hammere or hamrer, definite plural hammerne or hamrene)

1. a hammer (tool)

Related terms

• hamre (verb)

Etymology 2

Noun

hammer m

1. indefinite plural of ham

References

• “hammer” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

West Frisian

Etymology

From Old Frisian hamar, from Proto-Germanic *hamaraz, from Proto-Indo-European *h?e?moros, from *h?é?m? (“stone”).

Noun

hammer c (plural hammers, diminutive hammerke)

1. hammer

Further reading

• “hammer”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011