anvil
Pronunciation Noun
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Pronunciation Noun
anvil (plural anvils)
- A heavy iron block used in the blacksmithing trade as a surface upon which metal can be struck and shaped.
- 1594, Christopher Marlowe, Edward II (play), Act I, Scene 4,
- My heart is as an anvil unto sorrow,
- Which beats upon it like the Cyclops’ hammers […]
- c. 1596, William Shakespeare, King John (play), Act IV, Scene 2,
- 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?
- 1840, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Village Blacksmith” in Ballads and Other Poems, Cambridge, Mass.: John Owens, 2nd edition, 1842, p. 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 5093462 ↗, 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: {{...}
- 1594, Christopher Marlowe, Edward II (play), Act I, Scene 4,
- (skeleton) An incus bone in the middle ear.
- A stone or other hard surface used by a bird for breaking the shells of snails.
- The non-moving surface of a micrometer against which the item to be measured is placed.
- 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 (anvils, present participle anvilling; past and past participle anvilled)
- To fashion on an anvil (often used figuratively).
- 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, John Ogilby (translator), Atlas Chinensis, London, “A Third Embassy to the Emperor of China and East-Tartary,” p. 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, Clarissa, London, Volume 7, Letter 92, p. 341,
- I never started a roguery, that did not come out of thy forge in a manner ready anvilled and hammered for execution […]
- 1648, Abraham Cowley, The Foure Ages of England, or, The Iron Age with Other Select Poems, London, Postscript,
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.003