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:
Only forty minutes later, towards the end of the news bulletin, did the anchorman briefly mention the death of Roman Starovoit.
From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2025
A brash young anchorman for the ABC affiliate, Michael Tuck, took on the newspaper in an editorial segment.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 20, 2024
“Here was a woman who had just done something monumental and this was all they had to say,” Jess Marlow, a local anchorman, told The Sacramento Bee in 1990.
From New York Times ● Jan. 22, 2024
Like many of today's pundits – though without their ideological commitments – he was an anchorman more invested in fame than in good journalism.
From Salon ● Jan. 23, 2023
But then the anchorman chuckles, and something inside Dad snaps.
From "South of Somewhere" by Kalena Miller
Within this context, celebrity anchormen like Walter Cronkite and David Brinkley downplayed their own stardom.
From Salon ● Jan. 23, 2023
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
Soon, the nation’s anchormen started steering the nation back on course.
From Slate ● Sep. 10, 2021
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 Rex Ellingwood Beach
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
