Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Nautical A heavy object attached to a vessel by a cable, rope, or chain and dropped into the water to keep the vessel in place either by its weight or by its flukes, which grip the bottom.
  • noun A rigid point of support, as for securing a rope.
  • noun A source of security or stability.
  • noun An athlete, usually the strongest member of a team, who performs the last stage of a relay race or other competition.
  • noun The person at the end of a tug-of-war team.
  • noun An anchorperson.
  • intransitive verb To secure (a vessel) with an anchor.
  • intransitive verb To secure with a fastener or similar device: synonym: fasten.
  • intransitive verb To cause to be fixed in place; fix or immobilize.
  • intransitive verb To cause to feel attached or secure.
  • intransitive verb To provide a basis for; establish or found.
  • intransitive verb Sports To serve as an anchor for (a team or competition).
  • intransitive verb To narrate or coordinate (a newscast).
  • intransitive verb To provide or form an anchor store for.
  • intransitive verb Nautical To drop anchor or lie at anchor.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To fix or secure in a particular place by means of an anchor; place at anchor: as, to anchor a ship.
  • Figuratively, to fix or fasten; affix firmly.
  • To cast anchor; come to anchor; lie or ride at anchor: as, the ship anchored outside the bar.
  • Figuratively, to keep hold or be firmly fixed in any way.
  • noun An anchoret; a hermit.
  • noun In the tug of war, the man at the end of the line, who is supposed to hold while the rest endeavor to pull.
  • noun Same as chapelet, 4.
  • noun Erroneous spelling of anker.
  • noun A device for securing a vessel to the ground under water by means of a cable.
  • noun Any similar device for holding fast or checking the motion of a movable object.
  • noun Specifically — The apparatus at the opposite end of the field from the engine of a steam-plow, to which pulleys are fixed, round which the endless band or rope that moves the plow passes.
  • noun The device by which the extremities of the chains or wire ropes of a suspension-bridge are secured. See anchorage.
  • noun Figuratively, that which gives stability or security; that on which dependence is placed.
  • noun In architecture: A name for the arrow-head or tongue ornament used especially in the so-called egg-and-dart molding.
  • noun A metallic clamp, sometimes of fanciful design, fastened on the outside of a wall to the end of a tie-rod or strap connecting it with an opposite wall to prevent bulging.
  • noun In zoology: Some appendage or arrangement of parts by which a parasite fastens itself upon its host.
  • noun Something shaped like an anchor; an ancora. See ancora.
  • noun An iron plate placed in the back part of a coke-oven before it is charged with coal. See anchor-oven.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete An anchoret.
  • intransitive verb To cast anchor; to come to anchor.
  • intransitive verb To stop; to fix or rest.
  • transitive verb To place at anchor; to secure by an anchor.
  • transitive verb To fix or fasten; to fix in a stable condition.
  • noun A iron instrument which is attached to a ship by a cable (rope or chain), and which, being cast overboard, lays hold of the earth by a fluke or hook and thus retains the ship in a particular station.
  • noun Any instrument or contrivance serving a purpose like that of a ship's anchor, as an arrangement of timber to hold a dam fast; a contrivance to hold the end of a bridge cable, or other similar part; a contrivance used by founders to hold the core of a mold in place.
  • noun Fig.: That which gives stability or security; that on which we place dependence for safety.
  • noun (Her.) An emblem of hope.
  • noun A metal tie holding adjoining parts of a building together.
  • noun Carved work, somewhat resembling an anchor or arrowhead; -- a part of the ornaments of certain moldings. It is seen in the echinus, or egg-and-anchor (called also egg-and-dart, egg-and-tongue) ornament.
  • noun (Zoöl.) One of the anchor-shaped spicules of certain sponges; also, one of the calcareous spinules of certain Holothurians, as in species of Synapta.
  • noun (Television) an achorman, anchorwoman, or anchorperson.
  • noun See under Ice.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English anker, ancher, from Old English ancor, from Latin ancora, anchora, from Greek ankura.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English anker, Old English ancor, from Latin ancora, from (or cognate with) Ancient Greek ἄγκυρα (ankura). The modern spelling is a sixteenth-century modification to better represent the Latin misspelling anchora.

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  • “In 1952, the first presidential year in which television outshined radio, Mr. Cronkite was chosen to lead the coverage of the Democratic and Republican national conventions. By Mr. Cronkite’s account, it was then that the term “anchor�? was first used — by Sig Mickelson, the first director of television news for CBS, who had likened the chief announcer’s job to an anchor that holds a boat in place. Paul Levitan, another CBS executive, and Don Hewitt, then a young producer, have also been credited with the phrase.�?

    The New York Times, Walter Cronkite, Voice of TV News, Dies, by Douglas Martin, July 17, 2009

    July 18, 2009

  • R.I.P.

    July 18, 2009

  • *sniff*

    July 18, 2009

  • :-(

    July 19, 2009

  • a bankroll

    October 8, 2010