use a sledgehammer to crack a nut

English dictionary entry

Meanings

verb

To use disproportionate or significantly excessive force to carry out an action; to do something overzealously.

Pronunciation

/ˌjuːz‿ə ˈslɛd͡ʒhæmə tə ˌkɹæk‿ə ˈnʌt/ /ˌjuz‿ə ˈslɛd͡ʒhæmɚ tə ˌkɹæk‿ə ˈnʌt/ En-au-use a sledgehammer to crack a nut.ogg

Word forms

use a sledgehammer to crack a nut uses a sledgehammer to crack a nut using a sledgehammer to crack a nut used a sledgehammer to crack a nut

Etymology

The analogy dates back to at least the middle of the 19th century: see, for example, this quotation from Levi Carroll Judson’s work Sages and Heroes of the American Revolution (1851): “He at once became the nucleus around which a band of patriots gathered and formed a nut too hard to be cracked by the sledgehammer of monarchy.”

Synonyms

use a sledgehammer to kill a gnat

Antonyms

shoot an elephant with a BB gun kill an elephant with a BB gun

Related words

break a butterfly upon the wheel bring a knife to a gunfight overkill when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.

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