sheet anchor

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Yet, Jane — Tomalin calls her “the true heroine of this story” — remained the sheet anchor of his life, as well as his typist.

From Washington Post • Nov. 2, 2021

In summer he manages his two dairy farms, calls them "a sheet anchor against inflation."

From Time Magazine Archive

To a sheet anchor a stout hempen cable is generally bent, as lightening the strain at the bow, and being more elastic.

From The Sailor's Word-Book An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc. by Belcher, Edward, Sir

"There's no way it can be done except by setting the sheet anchor thirty or forty fathoms toward the mouth of the harbor and working down to it by sheer expenditure of muscle."

From A Runaway Brig; or, An Accidental Cruise by Otis, James

"It used to be quite different in the olden days when every woman was five foot six, and four men could easily have worked a frigate's capstan and raised the sheet anchor."

From Abb? Aubain and Mosaics by M?rim?e, Prosper