tack hammer

5.7

A small light hammer used to drive small nails into wood

noun
/tæk ˈhæmər/

: martillo de tapicería

That's a tack hammer.

Examples

The carpenter's tool belt included a tack hammer for driving small nails with precision.
To hang the picture securely, he used a tack hammer to drive the tacks into the wall.
Tommy will come back there and hit you on the head with a tack hammer 'cause you're a retard.

Tommy Boy (1995)
She picked up a tack hammer to fasten the fabric to the wooden frame.

Synonyms

hammer

vstack hammer

188 1.0

A tool with a heavy head for hitting nails or wood

is a much smaller, lighter tool meant for pushing small fasteners into surfaces

How Heavy

sledgehammer

35 3.9

ball-peen hammer

Specialized

3 6.3

claw hammer

3 2.9

tack hammer

5.7

Surface Forms

tack hammer singular

tack hammers plural

Morphology

tack + hammer

The meaning is directly compositional: 'tack' (a small fastening pin) modifies 'hammer' (a tool), giving a hammer used for driving tacks. This noun–noun compound follows a standard, cross-linguistically common formation pattern, so a B1 learner who knows both words can readily infer the MWE meaning.

Etymology

Tack hammer comes from the simple picture of its two parts: tack and hammer, where tack means 'small nail' and hammer means 'tool to hit things'. Picture a thin, light hammer tapping tiny tacks into wood, and you can see why the name now means 'a small, light hammer for driving tacks'.