1891. Tit Bits, 15 Aug. I need not go into the circumstances which led to my being expelled from that honourable body, or hammered as it is familiarly called, owing to the taps with a hammer which the head porter gives before he officially proclaims the name of a defaulter. [[254]]
Down as a hammer, adv. phr. (common).—1. Wide-awake; knowing (q.v.); fly (q.v.).
1819. Moore, Tom Crib, p. 45. To be down to anything is pretty much the same as being up to it, and down as a hammer is, of course, the intensivum of the phrase.
2. (colloquial).—Instant; peremptory; merciless. Cf., Like a thousand of bricks. Also To be down on … like a hammer.
At (or under) the hammer, adv. phr. (auctioneers’).—For sale at auction.
That’s the hammer, verb. phr. (colloquial).—An expression of approval or assent.
To be hammers to one, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To know what one means.
To hammer out (or into), verb. phr. (colloquial).—To be at pains to deceive; to reiterate; to force to hear.
1596. Ben Jonson, Every Man in his Humour, iii., 3. Now am I, for some five and fifty reasons, hammering, hammering revenge.
1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., iii., 23. If any Scholar be in doubt, And cannot well bring this matter about; The Blacksmith can hammer it out.