harbor

Pluralharbors

Formsharbors, harboring, harbored

1. 1
   portnouncountable

   A sheltered stretch of water beside land where ships can anchor or dock, especially to load and unload cargo.

   The old harbor still shelters dozens of cargo ships each week.

   Tugboats guided the tanker safely into the harbor before unloading began.

   Similarport, anchorage, haven

   Note

   Sheltered water for ships: the general idea of a place of shelter narrowed to the edge of the sea. The word names the protected water itself, where vessels anchor or dock. Sarah Orne Jewett, writing in The Atlantic Monthly in 1881, made it a figure for exchange: a harbor takes something from the world and has something to give in return.

2. 2
   keep in mindverbtransitive

   To hold or persistently keep a feeling, thought, or suspicion in one's mind.

   People who harbor suspicions rarely voice them openly.

   For years she harbored resentment toward those who doubted her.

   Similarnurse, entertain, hold, bear, nurture

   Note

   Here the shelter is the mind, and what it keeps safe is usually something unwelcome: a grudge, a resentment, a suspicion, a private conviction. Harbor a grudge is the set phrase. The verb implies keeping a feeling over time, which is why Sophie Hannah's How to Hold a Grudge can set remembering one's own life story against harboring a grudge. A passing thought is had, not harbored.

3. 3
   give shelterverbtransitive

   To give shelter or a safe place to a person, animal, or thing.

   Local families harbored refugees during the long conflict.

   A captain who would harbor smugglers risked losing his ship.

   Similarshelter, hide, conceal, protect, shield

   Note

   The verb has its own Old English ancestor, herebeorgian, "to take up one's quarters, lodge," formed from the noun. The thing harbored is often unwelcome: docks that harbor petty thieves or, in Katie L. Burke's report in American Scientist (2013), bats that harbor viruses such as Ebola. That is the scientific use, in which a host harbors a pathogen.

4. 4
   safe placenouncountable

   Any place that gives shelter or protection from danger or the elements.

   To the runaways, the abandoned mill offered a harbor from the world outside.

   Her grandmother's home remained a harbor of calm amid the family's troubles.

   Similarhaven, refuge, sanctuary, shelter, retreat

   Note

   The oldest meaning, and the one the port sense narrowed from. Old English herebeorg joined here, "army," with beorg, "protection," so a harbor was first a shelter for troops. Today it covers any refuge, and it often turns wry: a neighborhood can be a harbor for petty thieves. With for, it names who shelters there; with from, what they escape.

5. 5
   anchor (ships)verbintransitive

   Of a vessel, to take shelter or refuge in a protected stretch of water.

   The fleet harbored overnight behind the breakwater.

   Captains prefer to harbor in deep coves when gales threaten.

   Similaranchor, shelter, moor

   Note

   A ship's verb, and intransitive: the vessel or fleet is the subject, and only a place follows, as in "the fleet harbored in the south." Compare the transitive "shelter" verb, where someone harbors something else. Here the ships shelter themselves, much as they do in the sheltered water the noun names.

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