claw hammer
3
2.9
- noun
- /klɔː ˈhæmər/
:
martillo de garra
- Gonzo pulls out a silver claw hammer.
Examples
-
He had a bottle of scotch in one hand and a claw hammer in the other, his arm bent upward at the elbow, the forked metal at eye level.
Fiction book (1995) -
Make sure that you pick a claw hammer since it would also be needed for pulling nails, old screws, and other items that have been embedded into the wood.
Blog text (9) -
Tom Short, who worked as a saddler, left and returned shortly with a claw hammer.
Fiction book (1992) -
And the safest, quickest way, is using a claw hammer.
-
Haven't you ever felt the glide of a shopworn claw hammer in your hand?
Blog text (24) -
She wandered the length of the workbench, reaching up to touch a coping saw here, a claw hammer there.
Fiction book (1998) -
Carpenters often rely on a claw hammer to pull out nails from wood easily.
-
To fix the broken chair, I grabbed my claw hammer and started removing the old nails.
-
When building a shelf, it's essential to have a claw hammer in your toolkit for nail removal.
Synonyms
188
1.0
A tool with a heavy head for hitting nails or wood
1
5.6
A hammer with a curved end for pulling out nails
1
3.5
A hammer with a split curved end used to pull nails
How Powerful
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a hammer with a claw for pulling nails' is directly and transparently derivable from 'claw' (a grabbing part) + 'hammer' (a tool with a heavy head). This noun–noun compound follows a regular compositional pattern that is cross‑linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents can easily infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
The tool name claw hammer comes from the shape of its head: one end is a curved, split claw that hooks under nails while the other end is the flat hammer face. Because the head looks like a claw grabbing a nail, the name stuck and today it means a 'hammer' used to pull out nails.