hammerhead
pronunciation
How to pronounce hammerhead in British English:
UK [ˈhæməhed]
How to pronounce hammerhead in American English:
US [ ˈhæmərhed]
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- Noun:
- these words are used to express a low opinion of someone's intelligence
- the striking part of a hammer
- medium-sized live-bearing shark with eyes at either end of a flattened hammer-shaped head; worldwide in warm waters; can be dangerous
Word Origin
- hammerhead (adj.)
- also hammer-head, 1560s, "head of a hammer," from hammer (n.) + head (n.). From 1796 (American English) in reference to a kind of shark, so called for its broad, transverse head. The animal is referred to as hammer-headed shark from 1752 and hammer-fish from 1745. The older name for it was balance-fish; there was a full specimen and a head of another under that name in the Royal Society Museum by 1681: He hath his Name not unaptly from the ſhape of his Head, very different from that of all other Fiſhes, being ſpread out horizontally, like the Beam of a Balance; his eyes ſtanding at the two extremes, as the iron Hooks do at the end of the Beam. He grows sometimes to the length of four or five yards: but this is a young one. [Nehemiah Grew, M.D., "Catalogue & Deſcription Of the Natural and Artificial Rarities Belonging to the Royal Society And preſerved at Greſham Colledge. Whereunto is Subjoyned the Comparative Anatomy of Stomachs and Guts. By the ſame author" London, 1681 ] .
Example
- 1. A great hammerhead shark is captured close-up off the bahamas .
- 2. She was the first to record orcas hunting hammerhead and thresher sharks .
- 3. In november , an international conference imposed a ban on trade in whitetip shark from the atlantic and on the hammerhead shark .
- 4. In the past 25 years , certain hammerhead sharks have declined 83 % in the northwest atlantic and up to 70 % in the eastern pacific and southwest indian ocean .
- 5. The convention on international trade in endangered species ( cites ) will consider greater protection of vulnerable sharks , including porbeagles , oceanic whitetip and three types of hammerhead to preserve their populations .