The word 'moorings' is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it to refer to the ropes, anchors, or poles that are used to keep a boat or ship in place in a specific area. Example: We staked our moorings firmly in the riverbed before climbing out of the boat.
Now, having removed African ethics from its alleged religious moorings, where do we moor it?
Few writers have captured them better than Rohinton Mistry in A Fine Balance, set in the short period when India lost its democratic moorings under the Emergency of the 1970s.
The canal is a popular stretch for temporary moorings.
All of these can be arranged by the Pierhouse Hotel - it has its own moorings for yachts.
Eat on board or head off into the night for a meal out - a real adventure as you dart back in the dark through the moorings.
It is also connected to "profiler moorings" that let instruments travel up and down a wire stretching from the surface to the bottom, allowing a cross-section of the water column to be sampled at regular intervals.
But in its zeal to tilt the balance of political power away from Washington towards the states, the court's majority has embarked on a venture as detached from any constitutional moorings as was the liberal Warren Court of the 1960s in its most activist mood.
Many residents, unable to obtain a permanent berth, must engage in "continuous cruising," staying at guest moorings for no more than two weeks at a time.
And dozens more are trying to break free of their national moorings.
In Europe, the market looks juicier still: annual spending by amateur boat owners is about $47 billion.Among the baits governments are trying out are free moorings (the Netherlands), tax breaks for crew (New Zealand) and tax-free boat registration (Gibraltar).
Foster Wheeler, an oil-services company, is building three extra pipelines and four new offshore moorings for tankers close to Basra, but that is still inadequate.
