noun
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sport the last person in a team to compete, esp in a relay race
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Also called: anchor. presenter. (in broadcasting) a person in a central studio who links up and maintains contact with various outside camera units, reporters, etc
Gender
Is anchorman gender-neutral? See -man.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of anchorman
First recorded in 1910–15 anchorman for def. 1; 1955–60 anchorman for def. 2; anchor + -man
Explanation
An anchorman is a television news reporter. An anchorman typically reports from a news studio, reading the news from behind a desk. You can use the words anchorman and anchorwoman to talk about studio-based TV newscasters, but it's becoming more common to use one word to refer to either a man or a woman. News anchor or just anchor are increasingly common names for an anchorman. In the early 20th century, an anchorman was "the last man on a tug-of-war team," but by 1958 the word described a news presenter on TV or radio.
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.
See Examples For:
Kyle Clark, an anchorman on Denver’s 9News, asked the candidate in a persistent and revealing sit-down interview.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 19, 2026
It also offered the chance to try out formats beyond the deadpan anchorman behind a desk riffing on news of the day.
From Salon ● Jun. 25, 2025
Back to the Nou Camp and it was the anchorman Sergio Busquets who popped up with a tap-in to level the aggregate scores.
From BBC ● May 6, 2025
Returning to the United States in 1970, Mr. Kalb became Washington anchorman for the “CBS Morning News.”
From New York Times ● Jan. 8, 2023
But then the anchorman chuckles, and something inside Dad snaps.
From "South of Somewhere" by Kalena Miller
For Switzerland, Xhaka tends to play as one of the two anchormen in midfield and rarely lets his country down.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 3, 2022
Another 35 percent overall say TV news is about as trustworthy as it was back in the days of when somber anchormen read news without much embellishment.
From Washington Times ● Mar. 9, 2015
They had been on the air for more than 10 hours, crammed against one another along a single desk, phone cords coiled across their scraps of wire copy, three anchormen stunned, yet in their element.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 15, 2013
Hurricane Irene terrorized tourists, residents, and anchormen all over the region, and it did real damage to the stretch of eastern Virginia that sends Cantor to Congress.
From Slate ● Aug. 30, 2011
The men at the ends of the tow-lines scrambled part way up the shelving beach and braced themselves, then wrapped the ropes about their waists, like anchormen on a tug-of-war team.
From The Iron Trail by Beach, Rex Ellingwood
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
