sheet anchor

Noun

sheet anchor (plural sheet anchors)

1. A large, spare anchor used in an emergency.
   • The Ship having thus depth of water again, and come into a place of some convenient anchourage, our first anchour not holding us, we let fall our sheet anchour […]1661, anonymous author, A Narrative of the Success of the Voyage of the Right Honourable Heaneage Finch, London, page 3
   • By Noon the Sea went very high indeed, and our Ship rid Forecastle in, shipp’d several Seas, and we thought once or twice our Anchor had come home; upon which our Master order’d out the Sheet Anchor; so that we rode with two Anchors a-Head, and the Cables vered out to the better End.1719, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, London: W. Taylor, page 10
2. (broadly) A source of help in times of danger; last resort.
   • And doubtless when other Arguments have been baffled by a Temptation, this hath been a Sheet Anchor to the Soul, and hath often held it in the greatest Storms, when the Wind and Waves have beat most furiously against it.1691, Ezekiel Hopkins, An Exposition of the Ten Commandments, with Other Sermons, London: Nathanael Ranew, “The Ninth Commandment,” p. 62
   • “[…] If you are afeard of goblins, brother, put your trust in the Lord, and he’ll prove a sheet-anchor to you.”1762, Tobias Smollett, chapter 18, in The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves, volume 2, London: J. Coote, page 124
3. A batsman who provides dependable defence while a series of other batsmen score rapidly.