anvil

noun

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

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

   “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?”

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

   “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. 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. A horizontal-topped mass of cloud, shaped like a blacksmith's anvil, that forms before a thunderstorm.

verb

1. (figuratively, often, transitive)To fashion on, or as if on, an anvil.

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

   “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.”

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