harbor.
Any place of shelter.
Meaning & usage
Any place of shelter.
The neighborhood is a well-known harbor for petty thieves.
A sheltered expanse of water, adjacent to land, in which ships may anchor or dock, especially for loading and unloading.
A mixing box for materials.
A house of the zodiac, or the mansion of a heavenly body.
Shelter, refuge.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English herberwe, herber, from Old English herebeorg (“shelter, lodgings, quarters”), from Proto-West Germanic *harjabergu (“army shelter, refuge”), from *harjaz (“army”) + *bergō (“protection”), equivalent to Old English here (“army, host”) + beorg (“defense, protection, refuge”). The final syllable was subsequently altered by analogy with the Anglo‐Norman and Old French suffix -or (as seen in loanwords like honour and labour). Doublet of albergo and auberge. See also borrow, bury, harbinger, harry and here.
To provide a harbor or safe place for.
The docks, which once harbored tall ships, now harbor only petty thieves.
To take refuge or shelter in a protected expanse of water.
The fleet harbored in the south.
To drive (a hunted stag) to covert.
To hold or persistently entertain in one's thoughts or mind.
She harbors a conviction that her husband has a secret, criminal past.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English herberwen, herbere (later harboure), from Old English herebeorgian (“to take up one's quarters, lodge”), from the noun (see above).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.