sinking ship en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- (Australia) audio
Meanings
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(idiomatic) Something which is doomed; an impending debacle; an ongoing disaster.
He said that […] Bella had been perfectly right to leave him, because he was a sinking ship, and deserved to be turned out penniless into the world.
1910, Mary Roberts Rinehart, chapter 2, in When a Man Marries:My word, won't it be funny when there's no Tevershall pit working. […] And now the men say it's a sinking ship, and it's time they all got out.
1928, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter IX, in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, [Germany?]: Privately printed, →OCLC:[T]he only future for Syria is without the Assad political dynasty. […] The government is a sinking ship.
2012 May 30, Haitham Maleh, “Opinion: A Peace Plan in Name Only”, in New York Times, retrieved 01 Aug 2012:[…]you can play around with girls without being involved in meshes of sentiment, and you can do anything and be justified—and here am I with the brains to do everything, yet tied to the sinking ship of future matrimony.
1920 April, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, book II (The Education of a Personage), page 255:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| sinking ships | Number=Plur | lexicographic |
Deriveds
Synonyms
Translations (8)
ru то́нущий кора́бль (something doomed) · fr cause perdue (something doomed) · hu süllyedő hajó (something doomed) · de sinkendes Schiff (something doomed) · gd tha na h-eòin a' falbh às a' chreig (something doomed) · pl tonący okręt (something doomed) · nl zinkend schip (something doomed) · fi uppoava laiva (something doomed)