anvil
a heavy iron block with a smooth face, frequently of steel, on which metals, usually heated until soft, are hammered into desired shapes.
anything having a similar form or use.
the fixed jaw in certain measuring instruments.
Also called anvil cloud, anvil top .Meteorology. incus (def. 2).
a musical percussion instrument having steel bars that are struck with a wooden or metal beater.
Anatomy. incus (def. 1).
Origin of anvil
1Words Nearby anvil
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use anvil in a sentence
These clouds feature pouch-like appendages that sometimes hang beneath the anvil of intense thunderstorms.
D.C. braces for second night of storms after deadly lightning strike | Jason Samenow, Jeffrey Halverson | August 5, 2022 | Washington PostResearchers aren’t just making superionic ice to play with diamond anvils.
Strange, dark, and hot ice could explain Uranus and Neptune’s wonky magnetic fields | Rahul Rao | October 25, 2021 | Popular-ScienceEarlier this year they predicted the conditions under which one metal that might have formed between the diamond anvils should superconduct, and they found different behavior.
Room-Temperature Superconductivity Achieved for the First Time | Charlie Wood | October 14, 2020 | Quanta MagazineAdd too much, and the sample will act too much like metallic hydrogen, metalizing only at pressures that will crack your diamond anvil.
Room-Temperature Superconductivity Achieved for the First Time | Charlie Wood | October 14, 2020 | Quanta MagazineProgress took off in the 2000s, when supercomputer simulations let theorists predict the properties of various hydrides, and the widespread use of compact diamond anvils let experimentalists squeeze the most promising candidates to test their mettle.
Room-Temperature Superconductivity Achieved for the First Time | Charlie Wood | October 14, 2020 | Quanta Magazine
INSIDER TIP: anvil is not for the faint of wallet: fresh ingredients set imbibers back $8-$12 per cocktail.
Murmelstein was stuck with a thankless and impossible job, caught between the hammer and the anvil, as he tells us.
Confessions of a Death Camp Collaborator: Claude Lanzmann’s ‘The Last of the Unjust’ | Jimmy So | February 7, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTHe seems relieved—like an anvil has been lifted from his shoulders—and so are we.
'Breaking Bad's' Series Finale Cements Its Status As One of the All-Time Greats | Andrew Romano | September 30, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTWhere were you when the coalition hammer delivered Operation Noble anvil?
Don’t Call It a Frum-Back: What’s Changed After Three Months Away | David Frum | September 4, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTIf we had these rules, everybody would have known what was going on at JPMorgan Chase long before the anvil dropped on their head.
Barney Frank on JPMorgan’s Contradictions, Mitt Romney’s Mistakes | Eleanor Clift | May 26, 2012 | THE DAILY BEASTHis tombstone in the churchyard consists of an anvil and hammer, wrought in stone.
British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car | Thomas D. MurphyWe readily recognise the fact that when a hammer falls often on an anvil it heats itself and the metal on which it strikes.
Outlines of the Earth's History | Nathaniel Southgate ShalerThe next moment Tom's hammer was making lively music upon his anvil, and Eddie was again on his way to school.
Harper's Young People, November 30, 1880 | VariousA few minutes after the blacksmith left me, I heard the hammer sounding upon the anvil in one of the caverns below.
My Ten Years' Imprisonment | Silvio PellicoIn accompaniment, some one was beating softly on the anvil, and the bellows were blowing rhythmically.
When Valmond Came to Pontiac, Complete | Gilbert Parker
British Dictionary definitions for anvil
/ (ˈænvɪl) /
a heavy iron or steel block on which metals are hammered during forging
any part having a similar shape or function, such as the lower part of a telegraph key
the fixed jaw of a measurement device against which the piece to be measured is held
anatomy the nontechnical name for incus
Origin of anvil
1Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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