Word.ws English Dictionary

anvilicious

anvilicious adjective: conveyed in a heavy-handed, unsubtle way; preachy.

Adjective

anvilicious (comparative more anvilicious, superlative most anvilicious)

  1. (slang) Conveyed in a heavy-handed, unsubtle way; preachy.
    • When you take something as subtle, ballsy, and downright mythic as Dark Will and turn it into the anvilicious, ambitionless, and dreadfully banal travesty that was the Crack Magick arc, that's not a big hubristic dream that went wrong; that's the utter lack of a dream, the complete failure of...2003 June 24, "Lord Usher", “Re: What would Whedon Make of Season 6/7 disappointment/hostility”, in alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer (Usenet)
    • 'Anvilicious'? […] 'Of, or pertaining to, anvils,' is how I'd describe it. Remember in cartoons, when they get dropped on people from a height? It means when an idea is presented on the show with about that much subtlety […]2003 November 21, Jane Davitt, “Re: 5.8: Gunn's toy robots”, in alt.tv.angel (Usenet)

Examples of anvilicious in a sentence

  • As soon as the parents voiced their objection to seeing Cartman nude on stage I knew where they were heading... anvilicious.2004 March 18, Ben Raines, “Re: Tonights south park one of the best”, in alt.tv.southpark (Usenet):
  • They keep dropping they ^([sic]) anvilicious hints about it being JFK and Robert but the time period in which it is set is wrong.2004 June 29, "Ubiquitous", “Re: "Jack & Bobby" pilot online”, in rec.arts.tv (Usenet):

Forms of anvilicious

comparativemore anvilicious
superlativemost anvilicious

Origin of anvilicious

From anvil + -licious, the implication being that the message's delivery is as unsubtle as the dropping of an anvil on a person's head (a stock occurrence in cartoons).

Questions about anvilicious

What does anvilicious mean?
Anvilicious means conveyed in a heavy-handed, unsubtle way; preachy.
How do you use anvilicious in a sentence?
As soon as the parents voiced their objection to seeing Cartman nude on stage I knew where they were heading... anvilicious.
What part of speech is anvilicious?
Anvilicious is an adjective.

Words near anvilicious in the dictionary

  1. Anvik
  2. anvil
  3. anvil cloud
  4. anvil clouds
  5. anviled
  6. anvilicious
  7. anviling
  8. anvilled
  9. anvillike
  10. anvilling
  11. anvils

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: anvilicious (page history and authors). 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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