a machine for driving piles, usually composed of a tall framework in which either a weight is raised and dropped on a pile head or in which a steam hammer drives the pile.
a person who operates such a machine.
a person who hits or attacks forcefully or powerfully.
Wrestling. a move whereby an opponent is turned upside down and slammed headfirst to the mat.
British Sports. a powerful stroke, hit, kick, etc.
a machine that drives piles into the ground either by repeatedly allowing a heavy weight to fall on the head of the pile or by using a steam hammer
informal a forceful punch or kick
First recorded in 1765–75
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
When engineers watched the lander’s video footage of its attempt to deploy the mole, they realized something was wrong: the 16-inch-long pile driver was hammering away, but wasn’t getting anywhere.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 20, 2022
Perforated pipes encircle the pile driver, blowing a wall of air bubbles that absorb and refract the noise, reducing it by as much as 15 dB.
From Scientific American ● Feb. 23, 2021
In 1870, the first mayor of Seattle is elected: Henry Atkins, a pile driver who helped build docks and wharves on Puget Sound.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 11, 2018
Early on, John Roberts—who was thought at least to be suggestible on the question on whether Texas has standing to bring suit—performs a pile driver on Solicitor General Donald Verrilli.
From Slate ● Apr. 18, 2016
Then the water hit him, in the side; it was like the blow of a pile driver.
From "Native Son" by Richard Wright
In the second round he made an astonishing save in stoppage time to push clear a 35-metre pile-driver by Colombia’s Mateus Uribe that was heading for the top corner.
From Reuters ● Jul. 7, 2018
After intermission, Franz Welser-Möst led a pile-driver account of Shostakovich’s hysterical, apocalyptic Fourth Symphony.
From The New Yorker ● Dec. 14, 2016
It is a brilliant sport, though, a cross between basketball and five-a-side football that revolves around its array of bravura close-in finishes: the pile-driver, the slot to the corner, even the cheeky dink, the palm-Pirlo.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 6, 2012
First, you take a giant industrial cutter, like a pile-driver.
From BBC ● Jan. 27, 2011
Yanking his arms free, he dragged off his belted jacket and flung it on the ground; on the jacket, with a pile-driver sweep of his arm, he drove down his cap.
From Joan of Arc of the North Woods by Day, Holman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
