different between anvil vs teest

English

Etymology

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 *pelh?-t- (“shaken, beaten”) (compare Old Irish lethar (“leather”), Latin pell? (“to beat, strike”), Ancient Greek ????? (páll?, “to toss, brandish”)), enlargement of Proto-Indo-European *pelh?- (“to stir, move”). More at felon.

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /?æn.v?l/, /?æn.v?l/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /?æn.v?l/

Noun

anvil (plural anvils)

1. 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, Act I, Scene 4,^[1]

     My heart is as an anvil unto sorrow,

     Which beats upon it like the Cyclops’ hammers [...]

   • c. 1596, William Shakespeare, King John, Act IV, Scene 2,^[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?
2. (anatomy) An 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.

Synonyms

• stithy

Derived terms

• on the anvil

Translations

Verb

anvil (third-person singular simple present anvils, present participle anvilling or anviling, simple past and past participle anvilled or anviled)

1. 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,^[3]

     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,^[4]

     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,^[5]

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

See also

• hammer
• ossicle
• stirrup

Further reading

• anvil on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• Alvin, Lavin, Vilna, nival, vinal

English

Noun

teest (plural teests)

1. A tinsmith's stake.
2. A small anvil.

References

• teest in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Anagrams

• teets, teste

Estonian

Noun

teest

1. elative singular of tee