hammer away

hammer away

To work hard on something persistently over time. Yes, we're still trying to hammer away the details of this contract.
See also: away, hammer
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

hammer away

v.
1. To pound on something with loud, repeated blows: The kids hammered away at the door until I let them in.
2. To work at something with determination for an extended period: We hammered away on our proposal all night.
3. To talk about something to an excessive and tedious degree: The committee hammered away at the same subject for hours.
See also: away, hammer
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • draw away
  • do away with
  • do away with (someone, something, or oneself)
  • drag (someone or something) away
  • drag away
  • draw away from (someone or something)
  • drag (someone or something) away from (something)
  • are we away
  • Are we away?
  • drift away
References in periodicals archive
Since taking office, he has used every weapon at his disposal to hammer away at the church-state wall.
Armed with a few questionable studies, some acid-tongued rhetoric, and vague allusions to the War on Terrorism, the anti-gun lobby is expected to hammer away relentlessly at the capital's most prominent Second Amendment stalwart, Attorney General John Ashcroft.
As we all know, stress can also become chronic when the everyday battles you fight at work, on the road, and at home hammer away at your peace of mind.
The fighters hammer away at each other, and the losers can get hurt.
Scientists have continued to hammer away at the so-called Philadelphia chromosome, a shortened chromosome 22.
She managed to wrench the hammer away as they struggled, and he eventually fled empty-handed after trying to smash the till open with the weapon.
Women earn a greater percentage compared to men in contemporary society than at the height of the explosion of feminism at the end of the sixties, but the religious right continues to hammer away at reproductive rights and so-called family values to have women behave as if they and we were living in the fifties.
Microsoft Corp continued to hammer away at the browser issue in the antitrust case in Washington yesterday.
But Saracens continued to hammer away and had their just reward as Lee got on the end of an inside pass from Ryan Constable to force his way over.
They started to chisel and hammer away. Before long, they unearthed the bones of a hadrosaur--a duck-billed dinosaur!
The Right has moved some crazy ideas from the fringe into the dead center of political debate because of its willingness to hammer away year after year.
It can hammer away at the reserves of snobbery that keep its readers from devoting their time and attention to the political fortunes of neoliberalism.
He smashed a screen three times, before "throwing the broken hammer away and simply walking away".
Females are hard to impress so males seek out old, hollow trees and hammer away loudly as with their reinforced beaks and skulls.
It's bizarre - you just hammer away on the 'head pump' button and their heads expand before your eyes.