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
The Los Angeles Times called it an "oppressively self-important talk hour starring a Cincinnati news anchorman and former mayor".
From BBC ● Apr. 27, 2023
If he could have read cue cards without flubbing up, he might have even been a decent anchorman.
From Salon ● Jan. 23, 2023
He did away with the staid, usually white anchorman delivering the news and switched to two anchors, often a man and a woman.
From New York Times ● Oct. 7, 2022
Walter Cronkite, the popular anchorman for the CBS Evening News, had long been a solid supporter of Johnson’s.
From "Boots on the Ground: America's War in Vietnam" by Elizabeth Partridge
TV newscasts at the time resembled those on the radio, with reports read by anchormen whose bearing and intonation made them known, whether derisively or affectionately, as the “voice of God.”
From Washington Post ● Oct. 5, 2022
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
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 boats plunged and rolled and beat themselves upon the shore, wrenching the anchormen from their posts.
From The Iron Trail by Rex Ellingwood Beach
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.
