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, Swedish - dialectal filta ("to beat")), from Proto-Indo-European *pelh₂-t- (compare Middle Irish lethar, Latin pellō, Ancient Greek πάλλω), enlargement of Proto-Indo-European *pelh₂-.

• (America) IPA: /ˈæn.vəl/, /ˈæn.vɪl/
• (British) IPA: /ˈæn.vɪl/

anvil (plural anvils)

1. A heavy iron block used in the blacksmithing trade as a surface upon which metal can be struck and shaped.
   • 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] ↗:

     My heart is as an anvil unto sorrow,
     Which beats upon it like the Cyclops’ hammers […]

   • 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] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act IV, scene ii]:

     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 […]

   • 1794, William Blake, “The Tyger,” lines 15-16,

     What the anvil? what dread grasp / Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

   • 1839, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “[Miscellaneous.] The Village Blacksmith.”, in Ballads and Other Poems, 2nd edition, Cambridge, Mass.: […] John Owen, published 1842, →OCLC ↗, stanza 8, page 102 ↗:

     Thus at the flaming forge of life / Our fortunes must be wrought; / Thus on its sounding anvil shaped / Each burning deed and thought!

   • 1875–1876, Gerard Manley Hopkins, “The Wreck of the Deutschland”, in Robert Bridges, editor, Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins: Now First Published […], London: Humphrey Milford, published 1918, →OCLC ↗, part 1, stanza 10, page 14 ↗:

     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: [...]

2. (skeleton) 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. (meteorology) A horizontal-topped mass of cloud, shaped like a blacksmith's anvil, that forms before a thunderstorm.

• stithy

• French: enclume
• German: Amboss
• Italian: incudine
• Portuguese: bigorna
• Russian: накова́льня
• Spanish: yunque, bigornia

• French: enclume, incus
• German: Amboss
• Italian: incudine
• Portuguese: bigorna
• Russian: накова́льня
• Spanish: yunque

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

1. (transitive, often, figurative) To fashion on, or as if on, an anvil.
   • 1648, Abraham Cowley, The Foure Ages of England, or, The Iron Age with Other Select Poems‎, London, Postscript:

     I Have anvil’d out this Iron Age,
     Which I commit, not to your patronage,
     But skill and Art […]

   • 1671, “A Third Embassy to the Emperor of China and East-Tartary”, in John Ogilby, transl., Atlas Chinensis‎, London, page 291:

     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.

   • 1748, [Samuel Richardson], “Letter XCII”, in Clarissa. Or, The History of a Young Lady: […], volume VII, London: […] S[amuel] Richardson;  […], →OCLC ↗, page 341 ↗:

     I never started a roguery, that did not come out of thy forge in a manner ready anvilled and hammered for execution […]