anchor vs tie

anchor

noun
  • A screw anchor. 

  • Any instrument serving a purpose like that of a ship's anchor, such as an arrangement of timber to hold a dam fast; a device to hold the end of a bridge cable etc.; or a device used in metalworking to hold the core of a mould in place. 

  • A metal tie holding adjoining parts of a building together. 

  • A marked point in a document that can be the target of a hyperlink. 

  • The combined anchoring gear (anchor, rode, bill/peak and fittings such as bitts, cat, and windlass.) 

  • A tool used to moor a vessel to the bottom of a sea or river to resist movement. 

  • That which gives stability or security. 

  • Carved work, somewhat resembling an anchor or arrowhead; part of the ornaments of certain mouldings. It is seen in the echinus, or egg-and-anchor (called also egg-and-dart, egg-and-tongue) ornament. 

  • One of the calcareous spinules of certain holothurians, as in species of Synapta. 

  • The thirty-fifth Lenormand card. 

  • A superstore or other facility that serves as a focus to bring customers into an area. 

  • One of the anchor-shaped spicules of certain sponges. 

  • The brake of a vehicle. 

  • A defensive player, especially one who counters the opposition's best offensive player. 

  • A point that is touched by the draw hand or string when the bow is fully drawn and ready to shoot. 

  • A device for attaching a climber at the top of a climb, such as a chain or ring or a natural feature. 

  • An iron device so shaped as to grip the bottom and hold a vessel at her berth by the chain or rope attached. (FM 55-501). 

  • The final runner in a relay race. 

  • An anchorman or anchorwoman. 

  • Representation of the nautical tool, used as a heraldic charge. 

verb
  • To be stuck; to be unable to move away from a position. 

  • To stop; to fix or rest. 

  • To connect an object, especially a ship or a boat, to a fixed point. 

  • To perform as an anchorman or anchorwoman. 

  • To cast anchor; to come to anchor. 

  • To provide emotional stability for a person in distress. 

tie

noun
  • A twist tie, a piece of wire embedded in paper, strip of plastic with ratchets, or similar object which is wound around something and tightened. 

  • A horizontal wooden or concrete structural member that supports and ties together rails. 

  • A necktie (item of clothing consisting of a strip of cloth tied around the neck). See also bow tie, black tie. 

  • A structural member firmly holding two pieces together. 

  • A tiewig. 

  • The situation in which two or more participants in a competition are placed equally. 

  • A curved line connecting two notes of the same pitch denoting that they should be played as a single note with the combined length of both notes. 

  • A meeting between two players or teams in a competition. 

  • The situation at the end of all innings of a match where both sides have the same total of runs (different from a draw). 

  • A knot of hair, as at the back of a wig. 

  • A knot; a fastening. 

  • A lace-up shoe. 

  • A connection between two vertices. 

  • One or more equal values or sets of equal values in the data set. 

  • A curved line connecting two letters (⁀), used in the IPA to denote a coarticulation, as for example /d͡ʒ/. 

  • A strong connection between people or groups of people. 

  • A bearing and distance between a lot corner or point and a benchmark or iron off site. 

  • An equalizer, a run, goal, point, etc which causes participants in a competition to be placed equally or have the same score(s). 

verb
  • To have the same score or position as another in a competition or ordering. 

  • To unite (musical notes) with a line or slur in the notation. 

  • To secure (something) by string or the like. 

  • To twist (a string, rope, or the like) around itself securely. 

  • In the Perl programming language, to extend (a variable) so that standard operations performed upon it invoke custom functionality instead. 

  • To attach or fasten (one thing to another) by string or the like. 

  • To have the same score or position as (another) in a competition or ordering. 

  • To form (a knot or the like) in a string or the like. 

How often have the words anchor and tie occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )