hammer
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "hammer", 6-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "hammer" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "hammer" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
hammer is aEnglishnoun. It means: A tool with a heavy head and a handle used for pounding. Pronounced /ˈhæm.ə(ɹ)/. It ranks #5,501 in English word frequency. Often confused with homer and hater.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | hammer |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈhæm.ə(ɹ)/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #5,501 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for hammer is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈhæm.ə(ɹ)/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,501 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 13 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for hammer, with forms such as "ahmmer", "hamemr", and "hammerr". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "homer", "hater", "Homme", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English hamer, from Old English hamor, from Proto-West Germanic *hamar, from Proto-Germanic *hamaraz (“tool with a stone head”) (compare West Frisian hammer, Low German Hamer, Dutch hamer, German Hammer, Danish hammer, Swedish hammare). This is … Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is hammer, spelled H-A-M-M-E-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A tool with a heavy head and a handle used for pounding.
- 2The act of using a hammer to hit something.
- 3The malleus, a small bone of the middle ear.
- 4In a piano or dulcimer, a piece of wood covered in felt that strikes the string.
- 5A device made of a heavy steel ball attached to a length of wire, and used for throwing.
- 6The last stone in an end.
- 7A frisbee throw in which the disc is held upside-down with a forehand grip and thrown forwards above the head.
- 8Part of a clock that strikes upon a bell to indicate the hour.
- 9One who, or that which, smites or shatters.
- 10Ellipsis of hammer headline.
- 11The accelerator pedal.
- 12A moving part of a firearm that strikes the firing pin to discharge a gun.
- 13A handgun.
Etymology
From Middle English hamer, from Old English hamor, from Proto-West Germanic *hamar, from Proto-Germanic *hamaraz (“tool with a stone head”) (compare West Frisian hammer, Low German Hamer, Dutch hamer, German Hammer, Danish hammer, Swedish hammare). This is traditionally ascribed to Proto-Indo-European *h₂eḱmoros, from *h₂éḱmō (“stone”), but see *hamaraz for further discussion. (declare a defaulter on the stock exchange): Originally signalled by knocking with a wooden mallet.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ahmmer,hamemr,hammerr,hammre,hhammer,hmamer
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for hammer
Misspelling Variants of "hammer"
Frequency rank: #5,501 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter H in our English index: