Anchor definition
Anchor a relay race.
Fear anchoring him in the dark hallway; mussels anchoring themselves to a rock.
An example of anchor is to secure a boat to the dock with rope.
A heavy weight connected to a ship by a chain is an example of a type of anchor.
Two major stores anchor each end of the shopping mall.
Bolts anchoring the deck to the house.
Memories anchoring us to our home town.
- Formerly a vessel would differentiate amongst the anchors carried as waist anchor, best bower, bower, stream and kedge anchors, depending on purpose and, to a great extent, on mass and size of the anchor. Modern usage is storm anchor for the heaviest anchor with the longest rode, best bower or simply bower for the most commonly used anchor deployed from the bow, and stream or lunch hook for a small, light anchor used for temporary moorage and often deployed from the stern.
Our ship (the captain) anchored in the stream.
- anchored
- to lower the anchor overboard
- to stay or settle (in a place)
- to drift because of the failure of the anchor to hold
- to lose ground; slip or fail
- to be anchored
- to hoist a ship's anchor off the bottom preparatory to sailing
- to leave; go away
Idioms and Phrasal Verbs
Origin of anchor
- Middle English anker, ancher from Old English ancor from Latin ancora, anchora from Greek ankura
From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
- Middle English anker, Old English ancor, from Latin ancora, from (cognate with) Ancient Greek ἄγκυρα (ankura), from Proto-Indo-European *ang- (“corner, hirn”). The modern spelling is a sixteenth-century modification to better represent the Latin misspelling anchora.
From Wiktionary