(anchors, anchoring, anchored)

1. Like doorstop but more severe; implies that the offending hardware is irreversibly dead or useless. "That was a working motherboard once. One lightning strike later, instant boat anchor!" 2. A person who just takes up space. 3. Obsolete but still working hardware, especially when used of an old S100-bus hobbyist system; originally a term of annoyance, but became more and more affectionate as the hardware became more and more obsolete. [Jargon File]

An anchor is a device, normally made of metal, used to secure a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ancora, which itself comes from the Greek ἄγκυρα (ankȳra).

Anchors can either be temporary or permanent. Permanent anchors are used in the creation of a mooring, and are rarely moved; a specialist service is normally needed to move or maintain them. Vessels carry one or more temporary anchors, which may be of different designs and weights.

A sea anchor is a drag device, not in contact with the seabed, used to minimise drift of a vessel relative to the water. A drogue is a drag device used to slow or help steer a vessel running before a storm in a following or overtaking sea, or when crossing a bar in a breaking sea..

I. n. II. v. a. III. v. n.

<hypertext> (Or "hyperlink", "button", formerly "span", "region", "extent") An area within the content of a hypertext node (e.g. a web page) which is the source or destination of a link. A source anchor may be a word, phrase, image or the whole node. A destination anchor may be a whole node or some position within the node. A hypertext browser usually displays a source anchor in some distinctive way, e.g. marked with a special symbol or drawn in a different colour, font or style. When the user activates the link (e.g. by clicking on it with the mouse), the browser displays the destination anchor to which the link refers. Some anchors only look different when the mouse is over them but this forces the user to hunt for them when they should be obvious. In HTML, anchors are created with the <a..>..</a> construct. The opening "a" tag of a source anchor has an "href" (hypertext reference) attribute giving the destination in the form of a URL - usually a whole node or "page". E.g. <a href="http://foldoc.org/"> Free On-line Dictionary of Computing</a> Destination anchors are only used in HTML to name a position within a page using a "name" attribute. E.g. <a name="chapter3"> The name or "fragment identifier" is appended to the URL of the page after a "#": http://fairystory.com/goldilocks.html#chapter3 (Though it is generally better to break pages into smaller units than to have large pages with named sections). (2007-05-21)