A large and heavy instrument in use from the earliest times for holding and retaining ships, which it executes with admirable force.
With few exceptions it consists of a long iron shank, having at one end a ring, to which the cable is attached, and the other branching out into two arms, with flukes or palms at their bill or extremity. A stock of timber or iron is fixed at right angles to the arms, and serves to guide the flukes perpendicularly to the surface of the ground. According to their various form and size, anchors obtain the epithets of the sheet, best bower, small bower, spare, stream, kedge, and grapling (which see under their respective heads).