anchor

• anchour (chiefly archaic)

From Middle English anchor, from Old English ancor, ancra, from Latin ancora, from (or cognate with) Ancient Greek ἄγκυρα (ánkura), from Proto-Indo-European *ang- (“corner, hirn”). The modern spelling is a sixteenth-century modification to better represent the Latin spelling anchora, a variant of the older Latin spelling ancora.

The verb comes from Middle English anchoren, ankeren, either from the noun or perhaps (via Old French ancrer)[1] from a Medieval Latin verb ancorare, from the same Latin word ancora.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈæŋ.kə/
• (US) enPR: ăngʹkər, IPA^(key): /ˈæŋ.kɚ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æŋkə(r)

anchor (plural anchors)

1. (nautical) A tool used to moor a vessel to the bottom of a sea or river to resist movement.
   • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 10, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:

     Men that I knew around Wapatomac didn't wear high, shiny plug hats, nor yeller spring overcoats, nor carry canes with ivory heads as big as a catboat's anchor, as you might say.

2. (nautical) An iron device so shaped as to grip the bottom and hold a vessel at her berth by the chain or rope attached. (FM 55-501).
3. (nautical) The combined anchoring gear (anchor, rode, bill/peak and fittings such as bitts, cat, and windlass.)
4. (heraldry) Representation of the nautical tool, used as a heraldic charge.
5. Any instrument serving a purpose like that of a ship's anchor, such as an arrangement of timber to hold a dam fast; a device to hold the end of a bridge cable etc.; or a device used in metalworking to hold the core of a mould in place.
6. (Internet) A marked point in a document that can be the target of a hyperlink.
7. (television) An anchorman or anchorwoman.
8. (athletics) The final runner in a relay race.
9. (archery) A point that is touched by the draw hand or string when the bow is fully drawn and ready to shoot.
10. (economics) A superstore or other facility that serves as a focus to bring customers into an area.
    • 2006, Planning: For the Natural and Built Environment (issues 1650-1666, page 15)

      Supermarkets have also had to adjust. Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda have put a much greater emphasis on developing smaller high street stores or becoming anchors for mixed-used regeneration schemes […]

11. (figuratively) That which gives stability or security.
    • Bible, Hebrews vi. 19

      which hope we have as an anchor of the soul

12. (architecture) A metal tie holding adjoining parts of a building together.
13. (architecture) Carved work, somewhat resembling an anchor or arrowhead; part of the ornaments of certain mouldings. It is seen in the echinus, or egg-and-anchor (called also egg-and-dart, egg-and-tongue) ornament.
14. One of the anchor-shaped spicules of certain sponges.
15. One of the calcareous spinules of certain holothurians, as in species of Synapta.
16. (cartomancy) The thirty-fifth Lenormand card.
17. (obsolete) An anchorite or anchoress.

    (Can we find and add a quotation of Shakespeare to this entry?)

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.

anchor (third-person singular simple present anchors, present participle anchoring, simple past and past participle anchored)

1. To connect an object, especially a ship or a boat, to a fixed point.
2. To cast anchor; to come to anchor.

   Our ship (or the captain) anchored in the stream.

3. To stop; to fix or rest.
   • Shakespeare

     My invention […] anchors on Isabel.

4. To provide emotional stability for a person in distress.
5. To perform as an anchorman or anchorwoman.
6. To be stuck; to be unable to move away from a position.
   • 2017 March 14, Stuart James, “Leicester stun Sevilla to reach last eight after Kasper Schmeichel save”, in the Guardian‎:

     It is an incredible tale and one that makes no sense on so many levels. Only two years ago Leicester were anchored to the foot of the Premier League and staring at the prospect of relegation to the Championship under Nigel Pearson.

• (to hold an object to a fixed point): affix, fix
• (to cast anchor): drop anchor
• (to stop): cease, hold; See also Thesaurus:stop
• (to provide emotional stability): support
• (to perform as a TV anchorman): host, present
• (to be stuck): bog down, embog, enmire

• disanchor
• unanchor

• Charon, archon, noarch, rancho

Compare anchu.

anchor m (plural anchors)

1. width

• ancheza
• anchura

• anchu

From an- (“bad, unnatural”) +‎ cor (“turn”) (compare droch-chor (“bad turn; unfortunate happening, ill plight”)).

anchor m (genitive singular anchoir)

1. ill-treatment

• "anchor" in Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla, An Gúm, 1977, by Niall Ó Dónaill.