Meaning & use
a sinking ship
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Meanings
phraseidiomfigurative
A group, company, or situation that is failing and that people are leaving quickly to avoid being harmed by its failure.
Grammar: Used after verbs like 'leave' or 'abandon', and typically with 'like rats' before it: They left like rats from a sinking ship.
Patterns
- leave something like a sinking ship
- abandon something like a sinking ship
- jump ship from a sinking ship
After the scandal, senior staff left the company like rats from a sinking ship.
Investors treated the struggling airline as a sinking ship and sold their shares.
He described the failing project as a sinking ship that no one wanted to stay on.
phrasefixed phrase
Literally, a ship that is going down under the water.
Grammar: This literal use is much rarer than the figurative one; you usually say 'a ship that is sinking' instead.
Patterns
- a sinking ship in the harbor
The coast guard rescued the crew of a sinking ship off the coast.
A sinking ship can pull nearby boats down with it.
Common combinations
- like rats from a sinking ship
- When the news broke, employees fled like rats from a sinking ship.
- leave a sinking ship
- Many talented players decided to leave the sinking ship before the season ended.
- abandon a sinking ship
- The board accused the CEO of abandoning a sinking ship.
- treat something as a sinking ship
- The market treated the old brand as a sinking ship.
- jump ship
- Several ministers jumped ship when the government looked like a sinking ship.
Synonyms and how they differ
- a lost cause
- This means an effort that cannot succeed; it focuses on the hopelessness of the goal, not on people leaving it.
- a dead end
- This describes a situation with no future or progress; it does not carry the image of people escaping.
- a doomed enterprise
- This is a more formal way to say a project is certain to fail; it lacks the vivid picture of a ship going down.
Opposites
Commonly confused: a sinking ship or a sinking feeling?
a sinking ship vs a sinking feeling
This means a sudden feeling that something bad has happened or will happen. It is about your emotions, not about a failing group.
Practice
After the CEO resigned, many employees left the company like rats from ______.
Choose one answer.
'A sinking ship' is the fixed phrase used with 'like rats from' to show people leaving a failing organization. 'A sinking feeling' is an emotion, and 'a lost cause' or 'a dead end' describe hopeless situations but do not fit the fixed comparison.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “a sinking ship”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.