as in mallet
a large, heavy hammer with a long handle
broke up the concrete using a sledgehammer
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as in heavy-handed
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Dissimilar Words
as in to cane
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of sledgehammer
Jeff Spry, Space.com, 10 Dec. 2025
Coles still has a neck like a Doric column and the forearms of someone who swings a sledgehammer 40 hours a week.
—Dan Pompei, New York Times, 2 Dec. 2025
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
Christian Clark, NOLA.com, 24 Nov. 2020
The suit stemmed from a May 10, 2019, incident in which police sledgehammered the front gate of his Outer Richmond home, held him in handcuffs for hours and seized his phone, computers and other equipment.
—Megan Cassidy, SFChronicle.com, 31 Mar. 2020
See All Example Sentences for sledgehammer
Noun
Some were as sleek as a stiletto, while others had all the brutal subtlety of a thirty-pound sledgehammer.
—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.
—Verb
The move means the 7-foot Kiwi will be under contract for the next three seasons and signals that at a time when the game is becoming increasingly perimeter-oriented, the Pelicans will try to sledgehammer their way to wins.
—Recent Examples of Synonyms for sledgehammer
Noun
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Lopatin used fast, percussive strikes to keep the score melodic, incorporating mallet strikes to mirror the ping-pong balls.—
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Harry sustained a hand injury from a mallet.—
Adjective
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Silence and anxiety grip the capital Caracas, caused by the shock of the January 3 attack and the fear of the government’s heavy-handed response.—
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Across the region, heavy-handed American tactics will risk spurring backlash and unintended consequences.—
Verb
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Visuals also showed some people receiving CPR. Uncontrollable crowd Police started caning people at one gate, leading to more chaos, said Mithun Singh, a software engineer among the crowd.—
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Both failed to fire, and the hero of the Battle of New Orleans, with a hair-trigger temper, began caning the would-be assassin.—
Noun
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As players shoot around, Jake cradles a ball before blowing past an imaginary defender to hammer home a dunk.—
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In 2022, the FBI investigated a 14-year-old Sturdivant after an ISIS member from the United Kingdom contacted him via a PlayStation and told him to dress in all black and attack his neighbor with a hammer and knife.—
Adjective
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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.—
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Likethumb_up Replyreply Linklink Copy Reportflag eraley 22 minutes ago Trump’s America and his jackbooted thugs.—
Verb
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The woman who was stabbed is in stable condition, and the man is in critical condition, the spokesperson said.—
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Early the following morning, Anaheim police officers responded to the intersection of Santa Ana and Helena streets after witnesses reported seeing two men chasing Reyes and one of them stabbing him.—
Noun
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That performance included baton twirlers and horses galloping through the crowd.—
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People have decided who is going to be the next person, and then just passing down the baton.—
Adjective
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The proud and courageous Iranian people are rising up against the tyrannical, despotic and oppressive regime that imposed its vicious rule in 1979 and has governed by fear and murder ever since.—
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Their writing focuses on identity and the intersections of mental health and oppressive systems.—
Cite this Entry
“Sledgehammer.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/sledgehammer. Accessed 12 Jan. 2026.
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