hammerhead

plural hammerheads

1. The portion of a hammer containing the metal striking face (also including the claw or peen if so equipped).

   Holonym: hammer

   1 more example

   Meronym: hammer face

2. Any organism with head shaped like that of a hammer:
   1. biologyAny shark of the family Sphyrnidae, which only includes the genera Sphyrna and Zygaena, with eyes set on projections from the sides of the head.

      Synonyms: hammerhead shark, hammer fish, balance fish

   2. biologyA hogsucker, a fresh-water fish of species Hypentelium nigricans, in the sucker family Catostomidae.
   3. biologyA hammer-headed fruit bat, a fruit bat of species Hypsignathus monstrosus, with a large blunt nozzle.
   4. biologyA hammerkop, a bird of species Scopus umbretta.
3. slangA stupid person, a dunce.

   1 more example

   [The butler] joined us with a telegram for Bobbie on a salver. From her mother, I presumed, calling me some name which she had forgotten to insert in previous communications. Or, of course, possibly expressing once more her conviction that I was a guffin, which, I thought, having had time to ponder over it, would be something in the nature of a bohunkus or a hammerhead.

   1960, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter V, in Jeeves in the Offing

4. A turn-around; a parking area constructed in a subdivision for initial access and construction.
5. biologyA kind of ribozyme; hammerhead ribozyme.