Definition of anchors in English

Wiktionary

anchors (Noun)
Plural of anchor.

Part of speech

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anchors, verb, present, 3rd person singular of anchor (infinitive).
anchors, noun, plural of anchor.

WordNet

Noun Plural: anchors
anchor - a mechanical device that prevents a vessel from moving
		ground tackle
		claw, hook a bird's foot
		watercraft, vessel skill in the management of boats
		flue, fluke a conduit to carry off smoke
		grapnel anchor, grapnel a light anchor for small boats
		mooring anchor an anchor used to hold a mooring buoy or a channel marker in place
		mushroom anchor an anchor used for semipermanent moorings; has a bowl-shaped head that will dig in however it falls
		stem, shank the tube of a tobacco pipe
anchor - a central cohesive source of support and stability; "faith is his anchor"; "the keystone of campaign reform was the ban on soft money"; "he is the linchpin of this firm"
		mainstay, keystone, backbone, linchpin, lynchpin
		support a military operation (often involving new supplies of men and materiel) to strengthen a military force or aid in the performance of its mission; "they called for artillery support"
anchor - a television reporter who coordinates a broadcast to which several correspondents contribute
		anchorman, anchorperson
Verb anchors, anchoring, anchored
anchor - secure a vessel with an anchor; "We anchored at Baltimore"
		cast anchor, drop anchor
		fasten, secure, fix attach to; "They fastened various nicknames to each other"
anchor - fix firmly and stably; "anchor the lamppost in concrete"
		ground
		fasten, secure, fix attach to; "They fastened various nicknames to each other"

= synonym
= antonym
= related word

Wiktionary

anchor (Noun)
A tool used to moor a vessel to the bottom of a sea or river to resist movement.
anchor (Noun)
Generic term to refer to the combined anchoring gear.
anchor (Noun)
A fixed point, especially materials or tools used to affix something at that point.
anchor (Noun)
A marked point in a document that can be the target of a hyperlink.
anchor (Noun)
An anchorman or anchorwoman.
anchor (Noun)
The final runner in a relay race .
anchor (Verb)
To hold an object, especially a ship or a boat to a fixed point.
anchor (Verb)
To provide emotional stability for a person in distress.
anchor (Verb)
To perform as an anchorman.

Webster DictionaryWebster's Unabridged Dictionary 📘

anchor (n.)
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.
anchor (n.)
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.
anchor (n.)
Fig.: That which gives stability or security; that on which we place dependence for safety.
anchor (n.)
An emblem of hope.
anchor (n.)
A metal tie holding adjoining parts of a building together.
anchor (n.)
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.
anchor (n.)
One of the anchor-shaped spicules of certain sponges; also, one of the calcareous spinules of certain Holothurians, as in species of Synapta.
anchor (v. t.)
To place at anchor; to secure by an anchor; as, to anchor a ship.
anchor (v. t.)
To fix or fasten; to fix in a stable condition; as, to anchor the cables of a suspension bridge.
anchor (v. i.)
To cast anchor; to come to anchor; as, our ship (or the captain) anchored in the stream.
anchor (v. i.)
To stop; to fix or rest.
anchor (n.)
An anchoret.

OmegaWiki DictionaryOmegaWiki Dictionary Ω

anchor
A television personality who presents material prepared for a news program and at times must improvise commentary for live presentation.
anchor
An object, usually a heavy piece of metal with points which dig into the sea-bed, used to hold a boat in one position.

Chambers DictionaryChamber's 20th Century Dictionary 📕

anchor
ang′kor, n. an implement for retaining a ship in a particular spot by temporarily chaining it to the bed of a sea or river. The most common form has two flukes, one or other of which enters the ground, and so gives hold; but many modifications are used, some with movable arms, some self-canting.—Anchors are distinguished as the starboard and port bowers, sheet, spare, stream, kedge, and grapnel, or boat anchors: (fig.) anything that gives stability or security.—v.t. to fix by an anchor: to fasten.—v.i. to cast anchor: to stop, or rest on.—ns. Anch′orage, the act of anchoring: the place where a ship anchors or can anchor: (Shak.) the anchor and all the necessary tackle for anchoring: a position affording support: (fig.) anything that gives a resting-place or support to the mind: duty imposed on ships for anchoring; Anch′or-hold, the hold of an anchor upon the ground: (fig.) security.—adj. Anch′orless, without such: unstable.—n. Mushroom-anchor, an anchor with a saucer-shaped head on a central shank, used for mooring.—At anchor, anchored.—To cast anchor, to let down the anchor, to take up a position; To weigh anchor, to take up the anchor so as to be able to sail away. [A.S. ancor—L. ancora—Gr. angkyra, angkos, a bend. Conn. with Angle.]

Marine DictionaryUniversal Dictionary of the Marine ⚓️

anchor
ancre (anchora, Lat. from αγκυρα, Greek) a heavy, strong, crooked instrument of iron, dropped from a ship into the bottom of the water, to retain her in a convenient station in a harbour, road, or river.
The most ancient anchors are said to have been of stone, and sometimes of wood, to which a great quantity of lead was usually fixed. In some places baskets full of stones, and sacks filled with sand, were employed for the same use. All these were let down by cords into the sea, and by their weight stayed the course of the ship. Afterwards they were composed of iron, and furnished with teeth, which being fastened to the bottom of the sea, preserved the vessel immoveable; whence ὀδοντες and dentes are frequently taken for anchors in the Greek and Latin poets. At first there was only one tooth, whence anchors were called ἐτερόστομοι; but in a short time the second was added by Eupalamus, or Anacharsis, the Scythian philosopher. The anchors with two teeth were called ἀμφίβολοι, or ἀμφίστομοι, and from ancient monuments appear to have been much the same with those used in our days, only the transverse piece of wood upon their handles (the stock) is wanting in all of them. Every ship had several anchors, one of which, surpassing all the rest in bigness and strength, was peculiarly termed ἱηρὰ, or sacra, and was never used but in extreme danger; whence sacram anchoram solvere, is proverbially applied to such as are forced to their last refuge. Potter’s Antiquities of Greece.
The anchors now made are contrived so as to sink into the ground as soon as they reach it, and to hold a great strain before they can be loosened or dislodged from their station. They are composed of a shank, a stock, a ring, and two arms with their flukes. The stock, which is a long piece of timber fixed across the shank, serves to guide the flukes in a direction perpendicular to the surface of the ground; so that one of them sinks into it by its own weight as soon as it falls, and is still preserved steadily in that position by the stock, which, together with the shank, lies flat on the bottom. In this situation it must necessarily sustain a great effort before it can be dragged through the earth horizontally. Indeed this can only be effected by the violence of the wind or tide, or of both of them, sometimes increased by the turbulence of the sea, and acting upon the ship so as to stretch the cable to its utmost tension, which accordingly may dislodge the anchor from its bed, especially if the ground be soft and oozy or rocky. When the anchor is thus displaced, it is said, in the sea phrase, to come home.
That the figure of this useful instrument may be more clearly understood, let us suppose a long massy beam of iron erected perpendicularly, Plate I. fig. 2. b c; at the lower end of which are two arms, d e, of equal thickness with the beam (usually called the shank) only that they taper towards the points, which are elevated above the horizontal plane at an angle of thirty degrees; or inclined to the shank at an angle of sixty degrees: on the upper part of each arm (in this position) is a fluke, or thick plate of iron, g h, commonly shaped like an isosceles triangle, whose base reaches inwards to the middle of the arm. On the upper-end of the shank is fixed the stock transversely with the flukes: the stock is a long beam of oak, f, in two parts, strongly bolted, and hooped together with iron rings. See also fig. 3. Close above the stock is the ring, a, to which the cable is fastened, or bent: the ring is curiously covered with a number of pieces of short rope, which are twisted about it so as to form a very thick texture or covering, called the puddening, and used to preserve the cable from being fretted or chafed by the iron.
Every ship has, or ought to have, three principal anchors, with a cable to each, viz. the sheet, maitresse-ancre, (which is the anchora sacra of the antients) the best bower, second ancre, and small bower, ancre d’ affourche, so called from their usual situation on the ship’s bows. There are besides smaller anchors, for removing a ship from place to place in a harbour or river, where there may not be room or wind for sailing; these are the stream-anchor, ancre de touei; the kedge and grappling, grapin; this last, however, is chiefly designed for boats.
To drag the ANCHORS, chasser sur ses ancres, implies the effort of making the anchor come home, when the violence of the wind, &c. strains the cable so as to tear it up from the bed into which it had sunk, and drag it along the ground; as already explained.
Foul-ANCHOR: it is so called when it either hooks some other anchor, wreck, or cable, under the surface of the water; or when, by the wind suddenly abating, the ship slackens her strain, and straying round the bed of her anchor, entangles her slack cable about the upper fluke of it, and easily draws it out of its place, as soon as she begins to ride with a strain. To prevent this, it is usual, as she approaches the anchor, in light winds, to draw the slack cable into the ship as fast as possible.
To ANCHOR, ancrer, mouiller, &c. is to let go the anchor, and to let the ship ride thereby.
The ANCHOR is a cock-bill, ancre est àla vielle, implies that the shank-painter, or rope by which the flukes were hung to the ship’s bow, being cast off, the flukes drop down perpendicularly; whilst the anchor is suspended at the cat-head by its stopper, ready to be sunk from the bow at a moment’s warning.
At ANCHOR, à l’ ancre, the situation of a ship which rides by her anchor in a road or haven, &c. Plate I. fig. 6. represents the fore-part of a ship, as riding in this situation.
The ANCHOR is a peek. See the article APEEK.
The ANCHOR is a-trip, or a-weigh. See those articles.
To back the ANCHOR. See BACK.
To cat the ANCHOR, caponner l’ancre, is to hook a tackle called the cat to its ring, and thereby pull it up close to the cat-head, which see.
To fish the ANCHOR, to draw up the flukes upon the ship’s side after it is catted. See the articles DAVIT and FISH.
To sheer the ship to her ANCHOR, gouverner sur l’ancre, is to steer the ship’s head towards the place where the anchor lies when they are heaving the cable into the ship; that the cable may thereby enter the hause with less resistance, and the ship advance towards the anchor with greater facility.
To shoe the ANCHOR. See the article SHOE.
To weigh the ANCHOR, lever l’ancre, to heave the anchor out of the ground by its cable. See CAPSTERN and WINDLASS.
To weigh the ANCHOR with the long-boat, lever l’ancre avec la chaloupe, is to draw it up by applying mechanical powers to the buoy-rope, and thereby pull it up to the boat’s stem or stern.
To weigh the ANCHOR by the hair, is to weigh it by the cable in a boat, when the ship cannot approach it, or when the buoy rope is broke. See the French term Ancre, and the phrases which succeed in order.

Vulgar Tongue DictionaryDictionary of the Vulgar Tongue 👅

anchor
Bring your a-se to an anchor, i.e. sit down. To let go an anchor to the windward of the law; to keep within the letter of the law. SEA WIT.

Wikipedia

Anchors are used to stop boats from moving. Today, anchors are usually made of metal, and they are made to catch the ocean floor (the seabed).

There are two main types of anchors: temporary and permanent. A permanent anchor is called a "mooring block" and is not easily moved. A temporary anchor can be moved and is carried on the boat. When people talk about anchors, they are usually thinking about temporary anchors.

An anchor works by either weight (mass) or shape. Shape is more important to temporary anchors, and design is very important. Anchors must resist wind and tide, and also the up-and-down movement of waves.

History.

The oldest anchors were just rocks, and many rock anchors have been found from a long time ago. Many modern moorings still use a large rock as the mooring block.

A simple anchor which uses two arms made of wood, and a rock weight, is an anchor which is still used today. The wood arms are sharp to enter the seabed, and the weight will hold normal movement.

Designs of temporary anchors.

The English language uses several special words to describe parts of anchors. This is because England has a rich marine and naval history, and so the language gives a large number of words to boat and ship terminology.

A modern temporary anchor usually has a middle bar called the "shank", attached to a flat surface (traditionally called "fluke") which holds the seabed. The place where the shank meets the fluke is called the "crown", and the shank is usually fitted with a ri