ANVIL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does anvil mean? 

• ANVIL (noun)
  The noun ANVIL has 2 senses:

1. a heavy block of iron or steel on which hot metals are shaped by hammering

2. the ossicle between the malleus and the stapes

  Familiarity information: ANVIL used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ANVIL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A heavy block of iron or steel on which hot metals are shaped by hammering

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("anvil" is a kind of...):

block (a solid piece of something (usually having flat rectangular sides))

Holonyms ("anvil" is a part of...):

forge; smithy (a workplace where metal is worked by heating and hammering)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The ossicle between the malleus and the stapes

Classified under:

Nouns denoting body parts

Synonyms:

anvil; incus

Hypernyms ("anvil" is a kind of...):

auditory ossicle (ossicles of the middle ear that transmit acoustic vibrations from the eardrum to the inner ear)

Holonyms ("anvil" is a part of...):

middle ear; tympanic cavity; tympanum (the main cavity of the ear; between the eardrum and the inner ear)

 Context examples 

Yet with consummate horsemanship they both swung round in a long curvet, and then plucking out their swords they lashed at each other like two lusty smiths hammering upon an anvil.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I can’t hardly believe that it was really you that used to come down to blow the bellows when Boy Jim and I were at the anvil.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Then he led him by dark passages to a smith’s forge, took an axe, and with one blow struck an anvil into the ground.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

His work at the anvil had developed his arms to their utmost, and his healthy country living gave a sleek gloss to his ivory skin, which shone in the lamplight.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“I can do better than that,” said the youth, and went to the other anvil.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

To him Aylward narrated the good hap which had befallen them; but the smith, when his eyes lit upon the relics, leaned up against his anvil and laughed, with his hand to his side, until the tears hopped down his sooty cheeks.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She had her nettings up, but we scrambled aboard, and at it we went hammer and anvil.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Then the youth seized the axe, split the anvil with one blow, and in it caught the old man’s beard.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

At four paces distance they stopped, eyed each other for a moment, and then in an instant fell to work with a clatter and clang as though two sturdy smiths were busy upon their anvils.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He would strike once with his thirty-pound swing sledge, and Jim twice with his hand hammer; and the Clunk—clink, clink! clunk—clink, clink! would bring me flying down the village street, on the chance that, since they were both at the anvil, there might be a place for me at the bellows.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)