Word.ws English Dictionary

anvil

/ˈæn.vɪl/US/ˈæn.vəl/

anvil noun: a heavy iron block used in the blacksmithing trade as a surface upon which metal can be struck and shaped.

anvil: a heavy iron block used in the blacksmithing trade as a surface upon which metal can be struck and...
Image: W.carter, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

anvil (plural anvils)

  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 […]1594, Christopher Marlow[e], The Troublesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England: […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press] for Henry Bell, […], published 1622, →OCLC, [Act...
    • I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,
      The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,
      With open mouth swallowing a tailor’s news […]c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
  2. The incus bone in the middle ear.
  3. A stone or other hard surface used by a bird for breaking the shells of snails.
  4. The non-moving surface of a micrometer against which the item to be measured is placed.
  5. A horizontal-topped mass of cloud, shaped like a blacksmith's anvil, that forms before a thunderstorm.

Verb

anvil (third-person singular simple present anvils, present participle (US) anviling or (UK) anvilling, simple past and past participle (US) anviled or (UK) anvilled)

  1. (figuratively, often, transitive) To fashion on, or as if on, an anvil.
    • I Have anvil’d out this Iron Age,
      Which I commit, not to your patronage,
      But skill and Art […]1648, Abraham Cowley, The Foure Ages of England, or, The Iron Age with Other Select Poems, London, Postscript
    • The Family Tang caus’d an Iron Pillar to be erected there of three Rods high, and of a proportionable thickness, Anvil’d out of an intire Piece.1671, “A Third Embassy to the Emperor of China and East-Tartary”, in John Ogilby, transl., Atlas Chinensis, London, page 291

anvil meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

anvil in Hindi

block used in blacksmithing
निहाई nihāī

anvil in Tamil

block used in blacksmithing
பட்டடை paṭṭaṭai

anvil in Marathi

block used in blacksmithing
ऐरण airaṇ

anvil in Urdu

آہرَن, سَندان, نہائی
More languagesFewer languages
anvil in Bengali
নিহাই nihai
anvil in Telugu
దాగిలి dāgili
anvil in Malayalam
അടകല്ല്, കൂടക്കല്ല്, ചെവിയുടെ ഒരു എല്ല്
anvil in Kannada
ಪಟ್ಟಡೆ paṭṭaḍe, ಅಡಿ aḍi
anvil in Punjabi
ਅਹਰਣ aharaṇ
anvil in Gujarati
એરણ eraṇ
anvil in Odia
ଅନ୍ୱିଲ୍, ଅନ୍ଭିଲ୍
anvil in Sinhala
කඹය kaᵐbaya
anvil in Nepali
अनभिल, अन्विल, अन्भिल
anvil in Tagalog
palihan
anvil in Arabic
سَنْدان sandān, سِنْدَان sindān, عَلَاة ʕalāh
anvil in Malay
andas, landasan, paron
anvil in Indonesian
tulang landasan, paron
anvil in Persian
سندان sendân
anvil in Thai
ทั่ง tâng, กระดูกทั่ง grà-dùuk-tâng
anvil in Vietnamese
xương đe
Sindhi
سَنداڻُ sandāṇ

Examples of anvil in a sentence

  • Thus at the flaming forge of life / Our fortunes must be wrought; / Thus on its sounding anvil shaped / Each burning deed and thought!1839, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “[Miscellaneous.] w:The Village Blacksmith.”, in Ballads and Other Poems, 2nd edition, Cambridge, Mass....
  • With an anvil-ding / And with fire in him forge thy will / Or rather, rather then, stealing as Spring / Through him, melt him but master him still: [...]1875–1876, Gerard Manley Hopkins, “The Wreck of the Deutschland”, in Robert Bridges, editor, Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins: Now First...
  • I never started a roguery, that did not come out of thy forge in a manner ready anvilled and hammered for execution […]1748, [Samuel Richardson], “Letter XCII”, in Clarissa. Or, The History of a Young Lady: […], volume VII, London: […] S[amuel] Richardson...

All 14 example sentences with anvil

Synonyms of anvil

Forms of anvil

Noun
pluralanvils
Verb
third-person singular presentanvils
present participle USanviling
present participle UKanvilling
past participle USanviled
past USanviled
past participle UKanvilled
past UKanvilled

Plural of anvil: anvils

Origin of anvil

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.

Words formed from anvil

Phrases with anvil

Questions about anvil

What does anvil mean?
Anvil means a heavy iron block used in the blacksmithing trade as a surface upon which metal can be struck and shaped.
What is anvil in Hindi?
Anvil in Hindi is निहाई (nihāī). See Anvil meaning in Hindi.
How do you use anvil in a sentence?
Thus at the flaming forge of life / Our fortunes must be wrought; / Thus on its sounding anvil shaped / Each burning deed and thought!
What part of speech is anvil?
Anvil can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce anvil?
Anvil is pronounced /ˈæn.vəl/ (US).
What is the plural of anvil?
The plural of anvil is anvils.

Words near anvil in the dictionary

  1. Anutans
  2. anuvrtti
  3. ANV
  4. Anvers Island
  5. Anvik
  6. anvil
  7. anvil cloud
  8. anvil clouds
  9. anviled
  10. anvilicious
  11. anviling

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: anvil (page history and authors); anvil (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); anvil (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ಅಡಿ (Kannada) (page history and authors); anvil (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); කඹය (Sinhala) (page history and authors); anvil (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-anvil.wav.

Cite this entry: “anvil.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/anvil. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.