anchor
Pluralanchors
Verbanchors, anchoring, anchored
Pluralanchors
Formsanchors, anchoring, anchored
- 1A heavy device lowered to the seabed or riverbed to hold a vessel in place against current and wind.
The crew lowered the anchor as soon as they reached the sheltered bay.
Heavy seas dragged the anchor across the seabed overnight.
Note
The seafaring sense the rest of the noun grows from. Old English ancor came from Latin ancora, itself from or related to Greek ankura. The ch is a sixteenth-century respelling after Medieval Latin anchora. The same root surfaces in doublets as far apart as anker, angora and Ankara. Its bulk made it a ready comparison: Joseph C. Lincoln's Mr. Pratt's Patients (1913) mocks cane heads "as big as a catboat's anchor."
- 2To fix an object, especially a ship or boat, firmly to a fixed point.
Engineers anchor the floating platform to the seabed with steel cables.
They anchored the boat to a heavy mooring buoy before nightfall.
Similarmoor, secure, tether, fasten, fix
Note
The verb came into Middle English as anchoren or ankeren. It was either made from the noun or borrowed through Old French ancrer from a Medieval Latin ancorare, built on the same Latin ancora. Its usual pattern is anchor something to something: a boat to a buoy, a platform to the seabed. Unlike the verb of coming to anchor, it takes an object.
- 3Something or someone that provides a sense of stability or security in life.
Throughout the crisis, his faith remained his one true anchor.
The community center became an anchor for newly arrived families.
Similarmainstay, rock, pillar, support
Note
The figure is old and devout: the King James Bible of 1611 speaks of hope "as an anchor of the soul." The image works because of what the ship's anchor does, which is to keep a vessel from drifting rather than from moving altogether. It usually takes of, for or a possessive: an anchor of the soul, an anchor for families, her anchor.
- 4The lead presenter who coordinates and delivers a television or radio news broadcast.
The network's lead anchor opened the broadcast with breaking news.
Viewers trusted the anchor to deliver the night's headlines clearly.
Similarnewscaster, newsreader, presenter, host
Note
The short form of anchorman or anchorwoman, and the one that fits either. It sits comfortably in plain reporting: Aditya Chakrabortty, writing in 2022, describes Condoleezza Rice being challenged on Fox simply "by the anchor." The verb follows naturally, since one anchors a broadcast, as in the presenting verb.
- 5
- 6To lower the anchor and bring a vessel to rest at a chosen spot.
The fleet anchored in the bay to wait out the storm.
Large vessels often anchor outside the port until a berth opens.
Similarmoor
Note
The intransitive partner: here nothing is anchored, and the vessel simply anchors, in a bay or in the stream. Either the ship or the person in command can be the subject, so our ship anchored and the captain anchored are equally idiomatic. The captain's decision and the ship's stopping are treated as one event.
- 7A large store or facility that draws customers into an area, supporting the businesses around it.
Developers signed a national chain as the mall's anchor before construction began.
The department store served as the anchor that kept the plaza busy.
Note
Retail's center of gravity: the large store that pulls shoppers in for its smaller neighbors, also called an anchor tenant. A. Sivakumar's Retail Marketing (2007) explains the economics plainly: mall developers give department stores huge discounts because these anchors create traffic. The role reaches beyond malls, too, and supermarkets now serve as anchors for mixed-use regeneration schemes.
- 8The final runner on a relay team, responsible for completing the last leg of the race.
The coach chose their quickest sprinter as the anchor.
As anchor, he took the baton in second place and surged ahead.
Note
In a relay the word is about order, not temperament: the anchor is simply whoever runs last, taking the baton for the closing leg. Other sports use it for a style of play, such as the batter who stays in or the defensive marker. On the track, though, the job is defined by place in the lineup.
- 9A marked point in a document that a hyperlink can target, allowing a reader to jump directly to it.
The author added an anchor at every chapter so links could point precisely.
A broken anchor sends the reader to the top of the page instead of the right section.
Note
A destination, not a road: the anchor is the spot a link lands on, while the link itself is what the reader clicks. Writers place anchors at headings or chapter openings so a link can point to one section rather than the whole page. When the anchor is missing, the link still works but drops the reader at the top.
- 10A secure attachment point at the top of a climb (a chain, ring, or natural feature) that holds a climber safely.
The lead climber built an anchor from two bolts and a sling.
A solid anchor at the summit let the team rappel down safely.
Note
Climbers' anchors are often found rather than built. A chain or ring already fixed at the top of a route serves, and so can a natural feature. When nothing is in place, climbers build an anchor from gear such as bolts and slings. Either way, it is the point the whole rope system depends on at the top of a climb.
- 11Any device that holds something firmly in place much as a ship's anchor does, such as timber bracing a dam or a fitting securing a bridge cable.
The suspension bridge transfers its load through a massive anchor buried in the hillside.
In the foundry, an anchor held the core steady while molten metal filled the mold.
- 12A metal tie used to hold adjoining parts of a building firmly together.
A wrought-iron anchor tied the brick facade to the timber floor frame.
Inspectors found that a corroded anchor had let the wall bow outward.
Note
In building, the anchor works between parts rather than against the ground. Where the dam and bridge-cable anchors hold a structure fast to something fixed, this metal tie joins one element of a building to its neighbor. When one fails, the parts drift apart, and a wall can pull away from the floor it was tied to.
- 13A threaded fastener driven into a wall or other material to provide a secure hold for screws or fixtures.
She drilled a hole and tapped an anchor in before mounting the cabinet.
The heavy mirror needed a sturdy anchor in each corner.
Note
American shorthand for screw anchor, the fitting set into a wall so that a screw has something to grip. In US usage the first word drops away, so a request for anchors means these fasteners, not anything nautical. Outside the US, the full phrase screw anchor is the clearer choice.
- 14To bring something to a stop and keep it fixed or at rest in one place.
The hikers anchored themselves against the rock to rest.
Strong roots anchor the tree against the fiercest winds.
Similarsecure, brace, hold, fix, steady
Note
Shakespeare uses it for a wandering mind coming to rest: in Measure for Measure, "My invention … anchors on Isabel." That construction, anchor on, lets thought or attention settle on one person or thing. It works the way a ship settles over its anchor, a figure that is still available to writers who want an elevated touch.
- 15
- 16To remain stuck in place, unable to move away from a position.
Soldiers sometimes anchor where they stand, frozen by the noise of battle.
His shoes seemed to anchor to the icy ground, and he could not step forward.
Note
Often a passive, past-participle use: something is anchored to a spot it would gladly leave. Sports writing supplies a vivid case: Stuart James, writing in 2017, recalls Leicester "anchored to the foot of the Premier League." Here the fixed point is unwelcome, which sets the use apart from the deliberate mooring verb.
- 17A defensive player, especially one assigned to counter the opposition's strongest attacker.
Their anchor neutralized the league's leading goalscorer for ninety minutes.
A disciplined anchor can frustrate even the most creative forward.
Similardefender
Note
A role defined by denial: the anchor is the player who sits back and answers the opposition's best attacker. In football commentary it attaches readily to position words. Phil McNulty, writing on England in 2021, has Kalvin Phillips hoping for a chance as a "defensive midfield anchor." Like the relay runner, it names a job on the team sheet.
- 18The braking mechanism of a vehicle, used to slow it down or bring it to a stop.
He jammed on the anchor the moment the child stepped into the road.
The old van's anchors barely held on the steep hill.
Similarbrake
Note
Driver's slang, and nearly always plural: you step on the anchors or jump on them. Terry Carr's New Worlds of Fantasy (1967) has a narrator praying Tim won't step on the anchors. Gavin Haines in the Bournemouth Daily Echo (2008) jumped on the anchors to scrub off speed before a corner. Keep it for casual talk; in a manual, write brakes.
- 19A batter who remains at the crease for a long time.
The team's anchor batted through the entire afternoon session.
With wickets tumbling, the anchor steadied the innings and refused to give up his wicket.
Note
Cricket values this player for time at the crease rather than speed of scoring. The anchor stays in while wickets fall, giving the innings something fixed to build on. The word fits the image closely: the ship's anchor holds a vessel steady while the weather moves around it.
- 20A depiction of the nautical tool, borne as a charge on a coat of arms.
The blazon places a silver anchor on an azure field.
Many port cities adopted an anchor as the principal charge on their arms.
Note
In heraldry the word names a picture, not a tool. It is a charge, one of the figures set on a shield and described in the blazon along with its color. A coat of arms is said to bear an anchor, and what matters there is the anchor's tincture and placement, not its work at sea.
- 21In archery, the point touched by the draw hand or string when the bow is fully drawn and ready to shoot.
She drew the bowstring to her anchor just below her chin.
Consistent shooting depends on returning to the same anchor with every draw.
Note
A point on the archer rather than on the bow: at full draw the drawing hand or the string comes to rest against it. Archers speak of drawing to their anchor, and returning to the same spot each time lets one shot repeat the last. The name borrows the anchor's job of holding something in one place.
- 22In programming, a line of code that serves as a reference point for inserting further code immediately before or after it, usually by copy and paste.
The developer placed an anchor above the loop to mark the insertion point.
Each template includes an anchor where generated code is pasted during the build.
Note
A programmer's bookmark in source code: a line chosen because it stays put, so new code can be pasted directly above or below it. Unlike the hyperlink target, which serves readers jumping through a document, this marker serves whoever edits the program. Its value lies in being easy to find again.
- 23The complete ground tackle of a vessel, including the hook itself, its rode and its fittings.
The bosun overhauled the anchor, greasing the windlass and checking every shackle of the rode.
Heavy seas had strained the vessel's anchor, fraying part of the rode.
Note
Sailors' shorthand for a whole system: the word stretches from the device on the seabed to everything that lets it work, including the rode, the deck fittings and the windlass. So overhauling the anchor means checking chain and machinery alike, and a strained anchor may be sound iron on a frayed line. Context, not the word, tells you which is meant.
- 24Carved ornamentation roughly resembling an anchor or arrowhead, forming part of certain moldings, as in the egg-and-anchor pattern.
The cornice displays a carved anchor set between two rounded eggs in the molding.
Restorers recut each weathered anchor along the temple's ornamental band.
Note
The pointed member of a familiar ornamental band. In an egg-and-anchor molding, rounded eggs alternate with a carved form shaped somewhat like an anchor or arrowhead, a pattern seen in the echinus. The same pattern goes by egg-and-dart and egg-and-tongue. The choice of name says more about what a viewer sees in the shape than about the carving itself.
- 25In cartomancy, the thirty-fifth card of the Lenormand deck.
The anchor fell beside the heart, which the reader took to mean lasting love.
In her spread, the anchor signaled security in matters of career.
- 26An anchor-shaped spicule (a tiny skeletal element) found in certain sponges.
Each anchor grips the surrounding tissue, helping the sponge resist tearing.
The species is identified partly by the shape of its anchors near the body wall.
- 27A small calcareous spinule, shaped like an anchor, found in certain sea cucumbers such as Synapta.
Each anchor catches on the sediment, helping Synapta cling to the bottom.
The skin of these worms is reinforced with countless calcareous anchors.
- 28A religious recluse, male or female, who withdraws from the world to live a solitary life of prayer; an anchorite or anchoress.
The anchor had not stepped beyond her cell in forty years, devoting each day to prayer.
A holy anchor dwelt in the cell against the north wall, speaking to pilgrims only through a narrow window.
Note
A different word from the ship's anchor that only looks the same. It comes through Old English ancer from Latin anachōrēta, the source of anchorite, and was shortened until it collided with the nautical term. Shakespeare still uses it in Hamlet ("an anchor's cheer in prison"), where a modern reader can easily mistake it for seafaring. The sense is obsolete now, so use anchorite or anchoress instead.
- 29Alternative form of anker. Obsolete.
Note
Not the ship's tool but a measure: a spelling of anker, the obsolete unit of wine or spirits equal to ten gallons, and the barrel that held that much. So an anchor of gin is a cask of gin, not a curiosity. Like the measure itself, the spelling belongs to the past.
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Origins
From Middle English anker, from Old English ancor, from Latin ancora, which is from or related to Ancient Greek ἄγκυρα (ánkura). The modern 'ch' spelling is a sixteenth-century change based on the Medieval Latin form anchora.
From Middle English anchoren, ankeren, either formed from the noun or perhaps (through Old French ancrer) from a Medieval Latin verb ancorare, all going back to the Latin word ancora.
Inherited from Middle English ankre, from Old English ancer, ancra, from Latin anachōrēta, either with significant shortening within Old English or through an unattested Old Irish form.