sheet anchor

Definition

A large, spare anchor used in an emergency.

Etymology

From shoot and anchor.

Example Sentences

• "The Ship having thus depth of water again, and come into a place of some convenient anchourage, our first anchour not holding us, we let fall our sheet anchour […]"
• "By Noon the Sea went very high indeed, and our Ship rid Forecastle in, shipp’d several Seas, and we thought once or twice our Anchor had come home; upon which our Master order’d out the Sheet Anchor; so that we rode with two Anchors a-Head, and the Cables vered out to the better End."
• "1691, Ezekiel Hopkins, An Exposition of the Ten Commandments, with Other Sermons, London: Nathanael Ranew, “The Ninth Commandment,” p. 62, And doubtless when other Arguments have been baffled by a Temptation, this hath been a Sheet Anchor to the Soul, and hath often held it in the greatest Storms, when the Wind and Waves have beat most furiously against it."