Anvil
noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A heavy iron block used in the blacksmithing trade as a surface upon which metal can be struck and shaped.
"My heart is as an anvil unto sorrow, Which beats upon it like the Cyclops’ hammers […]"
- 2 a heavy block of iron or steel on which hot metals are shaped by hammering wordnet
- 3 The incus bone in the middle ear.
- 4 a small bone in the middle ear between the malleus and the stapes wordnet
- 5 A stone or other hard surface used by a bird for breaking the shells of snails.
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- 6 The non-moving surface of a micrometer against which the item to be measured is placed.
- 7 A horizontal-topped mass of cloud, shaped like a blacksmith's anvil, that forms before a thunderstorm.
- 1 To fashion on, or as if on, an anvil. figuratively, often, transitive
"I Have anvil’d out this Iron Age, Which I commit, not to your patronage, But skill and Art […]"
Example
More examples"Hasten slowly, and without losing heart, put your work twenty times upon the anvil."
Etymology
From Middle English anfilt, anvelt, anfelt, from late Old English anfilt, anfilte, anfealt, from earlier onfilti (“anvil”), from Proto-West Germanic *anafalt (compare Middle Dutch anvilte, Low German Anfilts, Anefilt, Old High German anafalz), compound of *ana (“on”) + *falt (“beaten”) (compare German falzen (“to groove, fold, welt”), Swedish dialectal filta (“to beat”)), from Proto-Indo-European *pelh₂-t- (“shaken, beaten”) (compare Middle Irish lethar (“leather”), Latin pellō (“to beat, strike”), Ancient Greek πάλλω (pállō, “to toss, brandish”)), enlargement of Proto-Indo-European *pelh₂- (“to stir, move”). More at felon.
Related phrases
More for "anvil"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.