Making a 'Thud'

Here are two interesting sentences that differ only in respect to one word:

The boy hit the wall with a hammer.
The boy hit the wall with a thud.

The Oxford Dictionary of English (Second Edition, page 1840) uses the following example in its definition of the word 'thud': 'he hit the wall with a terrific thud'. Hmmm! I thought. This is an interesting sentence since it conjured up visions in my mind of someone actually hitting a wall with an object called a thud. But what then is a thud? A thud is a type of noise - so how can a thud be used to hit a wall? I guess what people would normally mean is 'He hit the wall making a thud'. Alternatively, 'he hit the wall and his impact was accompanied by a thud'. But each of these also conjures up interesting pictures in the mind. For example, one can envisage a person hitting a wall to manufacture a thud - as happens when someone bangs a big base-drum. I suppose the problem is that there are always hidden implications in the words and sentences that people use and these implications become an inherent aspect of the language that we use in conducting our day to day activities. Naturally, these implications can introduce ambiguity, fuzziness and absurdity unless one is 'in the know'. And, there I go!