Meaning
To "weigh anchor" is to bring it aboard a vessel in preparation for departure. The phrase "anchor's aweigh" is a report that the anchor is clear of the sea bottom and, therefore, the ship is officially underway.
"Weigh" as a verb means to "bear" or "move", thus giving it several shades of meaning and derivation, including "weight" or heaviness. This lends itself to obvious plays on words, as with Flip Wilson's old routine about Christopher Columbus. "Columbus cried, 'Weigh anchor'. A few minutes later, a crewman reported, 'Two thousand, one hundred thirty six pounds'."
Read more about this topic: Anchors Aweigh
Famous quotes containing the word meaning:
“From man’s blood-sodden heart are sprung
Those branches of the night and day
Where the gaudy moon is hung.
What’s the meaning of all song?
“Let all things pass away.””
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Life has to be given a meaning because of the obvious fact that it has no meaning.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“Even in my own writings I cannot always recover the meaning of my former ideas; I know not what I meant to say, and often get into a regular heat, correcting and putting a new sense into it, having lost the first and better one. I do nothing but come and go. My judgement does not always forge straight ahead; it strays and wanders.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)