Anchored

How to spell anchored

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce anchored

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does anchored mean?

1. verbPast tense of anchor: held a vessel in place with a heavy hooked weight, or fixed something firmly so it could not move.
2. adjectiveHeld securely in a fixed position; firmly attached or grounded.

Anchored in a sentence

• verb

  The crew anchored the yacht just outside the harbour for the night.

• adjective

  The heavy shelving was firmly anchored to the wall studs.

• verb

  The builders anchored the steel frame deep into the concrete foundation.

• adjective

  His savings plan felt safely anchored by a steady monthly income.

Where does anchored come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek ankura, meaning 'a hook' or 'something bent', which itself relates to ankon, the bend of the elbow. The Romans borrowed it as the Latin ancora for the heavy hooked weight that holds a ship in place, and Old English took it in as ancor, spelled and pronounced without any 'h'. For centuries it was written 'anker' or 'ancor', which matches how we still say it today. The pesky silent 'h' was inserted by Renaissance scholars who wrongly assumed the word should mirror Greek words spelled with 'ch', so the spelling was reshaped to 'anchor' even though the sound never changed. That mistaken classical tidiness is exactly why the 'ch' trap survives in modern 'anchored', where the letters look like they should make a 'ch' sound but stubbornly stay hard.

How the word is built

• anchor (from Greek ankura: a hook)
• -ed (past tense / past participle suffix)