hammer home

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

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Verb

hammer home (third-person singular simple present hammers home, present participle hammering home, simple past and past participle hammered home)

1. (idiomatic) To repeatedly or continually emphasise (an opinion or idea) until or so that a person or group of people understands it.

   The politicians seem to think that they have to hammer home every policy for the public to understand it: I would have thought we're more intelligent than that.

   • 2020 December 21, Bryan Lufkin, “How 'linguistic mirroring' can make you more convincing”, in BBC‎^[1]:

     In other situations, you might know someone who adds colour with personal anecdotes and feelings. You could shoot off a similar response – perhaps including a short story of your own to hammer home your point.

   • 2023 August 23, Pip Dunn, “The last bastion of the HST 'Castles'”, in RAIL, number 990, page 49:

     Seeing that it was withdrawn in perfectly good working order hammers it home: these trains are on borrowed time.

Synonyms

• drive home

Translations

To repeatedly or continually emphasise

• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 強調／强调 (koeng⁴ diu⁶), 反覆說明／反覆说明 (faan² fuk¹ syut³ ming⁴)

• German: einbläuen (de)
• Russian: вда́лбливать (ru) impf (vdálblivatʹ), вдолби́ть (ru) pf (vdolbítʹ)
• Serbo-Croatian: tuviti u glavu (idiom), utuvljivati (sh)
• Swedish: hamra in (sv)