as in mallet
a large, heavy hammer with a long handle
broke up the concrete using a sledgehammer
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
as in heavy-handed
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
as in to cane
Synonyms & Similar Words
Examples Sentences
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of sledgehammer
James Morris, Forbes, 23 Nov. 2024
Two suspects used a sledgehammer to smash a glass display to steal three Chanel handbags that were said to be worth $10,000 each.
—Rosemary Feitelberg, WWD, 8 Oct. 2024
Bethany Rodgers, The Salt Lake Tribune, 27 Sep. 2021
The Academy Award winner quickly turned into a sledgehammer pro, getting involved in breaking through walls and ripping out fixtures.
—Vanessa Etienne, PEOPLE.com, 9 July 2021
James Barron, New York Times, 13 Jan. 2020
Should have done steel ball on window, *then* sledgehammer the door.
—Adam Lashinsky, Fortune, 25 Nov. 2019
See all Example Sentences for sledgehammer 
Noun
Many people are up in arms, acting like parent company JLR has smashed a kitten with a sledgehammer.
—James Morris, Forbes, 23 Nov. 2024
Two suspects used a sledgehammer to smash a glass display to steal three Chanel handbags that were said to be worth $10,000 each.
—Rosemary Feitelberg, WWD, 8 Oct. 2024
Adjective
And Sundwall said that, in retrospect, state health officials took a sledgehammer approach to mitigating the pandemic, such as school closings in 2020, when the state could have taken a more surgical tack.
—Bethany Rodgers, The Salt Lake Tribune, 27 Sep. 2021
The Academy Award winner quickly turned into a sledgehammer pro, getting involved in breaking through walls and ripping out fixtures.
—Vanessa Etienne, PEOPLE.com, 9 July 2021
Verb
Perhaps the most brazen took place in 1958, when two men sledgehammered the Fifth Avenue display windows in the middle of the night.
—James Barron, New York Times, 13 Jan. 2020
Should have done steel ball on window, *then* sledgehammer the door.
—Adam Lashinsky, Fortune, 25 Nov. 2019
See all Example Sentences for sledgehammer
Recent Examples of Synonyms for sledgehammer
Noun
-
The precursor of the xylophone and marimba, a balafon is made by carefully cutting 21 wooden slats into different lengths, fixing them atop hallow calabashes, and striking them with mallets wound with the gum and sap of a rubber tree.Eliot Stein, Rolling Stone, 9 Dec. 2024
-
Walker showed me a video of the fingers surviving blows from a mallet.James Somers, The New Yorker, 25 Nov. 2024
Adjective
-
Musk’s influence could thus lead to a more heavy-handed regulatory environment for AI in the U.S. There is one problem with all these speculations, though.Rob Toews, Forbes, 22 Dec. 2024
-
But what starts as a winking nod at the challenges of parenting ends up a heavy-handed fable about the primacy of human values, with an emphasis on the idea that a gendered role is essential to becoming human.Elvia Wilk, The Atlantic, 18 Dec. 2024
Verb
-
Prune the second-year, woody canes off summer-bearing raspberries once a year after the plants fruit.Lauren Landers, Better Homes & Gardens, 24 July 2024
-
In the nearly 250 years since its founding, the United States has witnessed its fair share of political violence, from four presidential assassinations to an 1856 caning on the Senate floor to a 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol that left at least five dead.Meilan Solly, Smithsonian Magazine, 17 July 2024
Noun
-
Many people have yet to learn that an industrial factory outside of Boston designs, casts, blasts, rolls, hammers, buffs and tests at least a million Zildjian cymbals a year.Brittney Melton, NPR, 18 Dec. 2024
-
Their heads appeared to have been bashed in with a hammer that lay near the bodies.Mara Bovsun, New York Daily News, 15 Dec. 2024
Adjective
-
Cooper was obsessed with the New World Order and the actions of jackbooted government enforcers against the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, and white separatist Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge, Idaho.Andrew Stuttaford, WSJ, 19 Sep. 2018
-
Hungary under his rule is far from a jackbooted dictatorship, but its democracy is diverging markedly from that of many of its partners in the European Union.Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 6 Apr. 2018
Verb
-
Her daughter, Martha Moxley, was found bludgeoned and fatally stabbed with a golf club in the backyard of her family’s home in Greenwich’s tony Belle Haven neighborhood on Halloween 1975.Theresa Braine, New York Daily News, 27 Dec. 2024
-
She had been beaten so savagely with a golf club belonging to a set in the Skakel house that the club snapped and the killer used a jagged piece to stab her through the neck.Staff report, Hartford Courant, 26 Dec. 2024
Noun
-
Pelosi has remained a major political force in the Democratic Party even after handing the Democratic baton in the House to Brooklyn Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who recently won a second two-year term as minority leader.Dave Goldiner, New York Daily News, 13 Dec. 2024
-
Police were able to view surveillance footage from the hospital that showed a man wearing a police-style belt that included a firearm, three magazines, a baton, medical kit and pouches for handcuffs and O.C. spray, according to the warrant affidavit.Justin Muszynski, Hartford Courant, 5 Dec. 2024
Adjective
-
Earlier this year, two teenagers filed a class-action lawsuit against a Kentucky youth detention center and its administrators, claiming that they were subjected to oppressive isolation, denied basic hygiene, showers, and medications, and forced to listen to a toddler song.Thao Nguyen, USA TODAY, 24 Dec. 2024
-
Based on the classic Stephen King novel written under pen name Richard Bachman, The Running Man is set in an oppressive future where the government controls the media.Justin Kroll, Deadline, 20 Dec. 2024
Thesaurus Entries Near sledgehammer
Cite this Entry
“Sledgehammer.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/sledgehammer. Accessed 31 Dec. 2024.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
Share