Forehammer

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A sledge or sledgehammer; the large hammer which strikes first, or before the smaller one.

    "The blacksmith I was put under was a kind good fellow and soon put me in the way of striking with the forehammer which was at first very tiring […]"

Example

More examples

"The blacksmith I was put under was a kind good fellow and soon put me in the way of striking with the forehammer which was at first very tiring […]"

Etymology

From Middle English forehamer, forhamer, equivalent to fore- + hammer. Compare Dutch voorhamer (“sledgehammer”), German Low German Vörhamer (“sledgehammer”), Danish forhammer (“sledgehammer”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.