Other forms: anvils
An anvil is the heavy iron block a smith shapes hot metal on. Hammer on the anvil, the ring of the anvil, an anvil horn.
Its weight is the point: the heavier it is, the less energy the blow wastes moving it, so a good one is many times the weight of the hammer. The pointed end is the horn, used for bending curves. One of the small bones of the ear is also called the anvil.
1nounanvilThe heavy iron block a smith shapes hot metal on.
“The blacksmith hammered the red-hot horseshoe on the anvil.”
anvil is a tool.
Old English anfilt, from a Germanic compound meaning something beaten on, from a root meaning to strike.
Proto-Indo-European
*pelh₂-t- — shaken, beaten
Proto-West Germanic
*anafalt
Old English
anfilt
Middle English
anfilt
English, today
anvil
Built from
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 mga lethar (“leather”), Latin pellō (“to beat, strike”), Ancient Greek πάλλω (“to toss, brandish”)), enlargement of Proto-Indo-European pelh₂- (“to stir, move”). More at felon.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA