mooring

[moo r-ing]

noun

Usually moorings. one's stability or security: After the death of his wife he lost his moorings.

Origin of mooring

1375–1425; late Middle English; compare Middle Dutch moor; see moor², -ing¹

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

If, however, our religion implicates itself in a political cause, it links its credibility to the most transient of moorings.
The Illusory Promise of Apolitical Theology
David Sessions
June 2, 2012
No surprise, then, that having slipped the moorings of a common reality it slipped the moorings of a common decency as well.
How British Tabloids Lost Their Way
Howard Jacobson
July 22, 2011

Pancks opened the door for him, towed him in, and retired to his own moorings in a corner.
Little Dorrit
Charles Dickens
Throw off your moorings, then, and clap on sail, for we must go.'
Micah Clarke
Arthur Conan Doyle
Heave the hussy up to her anchor, Mr. Leach, when we will cast an eye to her moorings.
Homeward Bound
James Fenimore Cooper
The ship had just loosed her moorings, and was gliding out to sea.
The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete
Madame La Marquise De Montespan
When the Bovista ripens it breaks from its moorings and is blown about by the wind.
The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise
M. E. Hard

British Dictionary definitions for moorings

pl n

noun

a place for mooring a vessel
a permanent anchor, dropped in the water and equipped with a floating buoy, to which vessels can moor

1744, "ropes, etc., by which a floating thing is made fast," from mooring. Figurative sense is from 1851.

"place where a vessel can be moored," early 15c., "process of making a ship secure," verbal noun from moor (v.).