bickern
(ˈbɪkən)
Forms: 6 bycorne, 8 bickhorn, 9 bickorne, 7– bickern.
[a. F. bigorne (= Sp. vigornia, It. bicornia):—L. bicornia, pl. of bicornis two-horned, f. bi- two + cornu horn.]
orig. An anvil with two projecting taper ends; later (under the influence of popular etymology; see beak-iron) applied to: One such taper end of an anvil.
| 1547 Salesbury Welsh Dict., Eingion gyrioc, a bycorne. 1677 Moxon Mech. Exerc. (1703) 3 A Black Smith's Anvil..is sometimes made with a Pike, or Bickern, or Beak-iron, at one end of it. 1781 J. T. Dillon Trav. Spain 145 They have no other word in the Spanish language for a bickhorn, or a bench vice, than Vigornia. 1814 Archæol. XVII. 292 And nails with a bickorne. |