▪ I. ˈanchor-hold1
[anchor n.1 + hold.]
1. The hold or grip that an anchor takes; also, the ground that it grips, = anchorage1 2.
| 1527 Gardiner in Pocock Rec. Ref. I. xxxix. 75 Being compelled to experiment whether anker-hold would serve us. 1628 Digby Voy. Medit. (1868) 25 If our anchor hold and ground tackle had failed, no industrie could haue preserued vs. 1725 De Foe Voy. round World (1840) 111 They found good anchor-hold in about thirty-six fathom. 1867 Smyth Sailor's Word-bk., Anchor-hold, the fastness of the flukes on the ground. |
2. fig. Firm hold; point clung to; chief ground of trust, expectation, argument, etc.
| 1533 More Ans. Poys. Bk. Wks. 1557, 1100/1 In these woordes is the very ankerhold. 1581 Marbeck Bk. of Notes 28 Their chiefest anker hold, was these words of Christ. 1611 Speed Hist. Gt. Brit. viii. vii. 403 The Norman Duke, who made that the anker-hold of his claime. 1855 I. Taylor Restor. Belief (1856) 120 Good anchor-hold in the roadstead of apostolicity. 1883 W. Gibson in Harper's Mag. Jan. 192 Hope's anchor-hold on golden grounds of Faith. |
▪ II. anchor-hold2 Hist.
[f. anchor n.2 + hold n.1]
An anchorite ‘hold’, abode, or retreat; the cell of an anchorite; = anchorage2.
| 1631 Weever Anc. Funeral Mon. 150 Their solitarie little cells..carrie still the name of..Anchor-holds. a 1666 Wood City of Oxford (1889) I. 356 The Anchorhold of S. Giles Church. 1802 Fosbroke Brit. Mon. (1843) 372 The Destina (for so these anchor-holds or stalls, affixed to larger buildings were called), occupied by Dunstan soon after he became a Monk. 1922 Times 22 Apr. 9/4 Both the church and its ‘anchorhold’, or anchorite's cell, are more than once mentioned in documents of the college [sc. Merton]. |