anchor

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.

• 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.
• 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 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 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.
• noun See the vocabulary.
• noun (Math.) Same as Annulus, 2 (b).
• noun See the vocabulary.
• noun See the vocabulary.
• noun (Naut.) the crossbar at the top of the shank at right angles to the arms.